Chapter 33
Frisk had been pretending to read when Sans reappeared. As with the night before, she took the first watch to wait for him. This time, he returned well before it was time for Frisk to wake Undyne.
"You came back before breakfast this time," was how Frisk greeted Sans.
With Sans standing over her, Frisk had to look up to make eye contact with him. She closed the book she held and set it aside. Her knees pulled up underneath her blanket.
Sans eyed the book. "A collection of fairytales?"
"I wanted to find some light reading before bed."
"Did you find it?"
"No."
For a while, the two stared at each other. Frisk crossed her arms and rested her head against the wall. As usual, Sans kept his hands in his pockets as he looked down on the human.
Casting the blanket aside, Frisk stood to her feet and said, "We should go somewhere to talk."
"You want to talk?" Sans sounded surprised, but also mildly amused.
Frisk shrugged. "Maybe you have some light stories to tell."
"Don't hold your breath."
"Honestly, I wasn't planning to."
Before they walked away, Frisk looked at the sleeping monsters. Undyne slept with a knife in her hands, ready to attack any intruders at the first sound of alarm. Alice and Mon shared a blanket, both sleeping so close together their foreheads touched. Snoozing in the back, Papyrus slept with the Temmie Frisk met in Tem Village sprawled out on his chest. It was a peaceful image Frisk burned into her memory.
The two walked a small ways before settling down in a field of echo flowers. Frisk wasn't sure if she or Sans picked there as the place to talk, but she supposed it didn't matter. These flowers shouldn't be silent, and Frisk hoped she and Sans would fix the problem in at least one small section of Waterfall.
Frisk turned her head, studied Sans, then again looked ahead of her. Sitting with her legs tucked under, she placed her weight on one hand and looked at the gems above.
"What's your favorite childhood memory?" she asked as she looked for constellations in the faux stars.
When he answered, Sans sounded more amused than earlier. "Is that what you want to talk about?"
"I said I wanted a light story, didn't I?" At Sans's failure to reply, Frisk said, "Okay, I'll go first.
"Let's see . . . I think when I was about nine or ten, I wanted to surprise Mom by making a cake all by myself for her birthday that year while she was running errands. I wanted this cake to be perfect, and I'm talking the best darn cake anyone in the entire world, Underground or surface, had ever seen or tasted. Believe me when I say I followed this recipe as exactly as possible. A cup of sugar? Not a grain more or less. Vanilla extract? I poured it onto a spoon over the sink before adding it to the rest of the batter so no extra extract would splash into the bowl. Mix it for three to four minutes? I set a freaking timer for three-and-a-half minutes. No lie.
"However," Frisk laughed, "the problem came with actually baking the cake. Mom never used the oven, so when it broke the year before, she never bothered to have it fixed. After all, she always used her fire magic to cook and bake. So how was I, a human child, going to bake with fire magic I didn't have? I decided I was going to create my own fire magic one way or another.
"I found the matches Mom kept in the cupboard for lighting candles – she always said it was easier to light candles with matches than to try creating such small flames herself. With those in my pocket, I ran outside and collected as many sticks as my small hands could carry. Once I was satisfied with my 'firewood,' I rushed back into the house and stuck them in the oven. I placed the cake on the rack, lit a match, and well . . . Let's just say Mom had to renovate the kitchen after that."
Unable to stop herself, Frisk laughed and smiled as the happy memory washed over her. Not that it wasn't scary and embarrassing in the moment, but the more time passed the more she cherished the recollection.
"That's your favorite childhood memory?" Sans questioned. He didn't sound judgmental, just entertained.
Turning her head, Frisk saw Sans smiling as he stared at the 'sky' above. Her attention turning back to the sparkling gems, Frisk finished, "Mom arrived just as the flames got out of control, and it was nothing for her to put the fire out. Oh, how I cried when I told her what I did! I thought she was going to yell at me and punish me. Deep down, I dreaded worse. But she did none of those things.
"Mom held me as I cried. No shouting or hitting or sending me to my room. Just hugged me until I cried every crocodile tear out of my little eyes. When I calmed down, she warned me of the dangers of playing with fire and told me I should be grateful I wasn't hurt. Then she said how proud she was of me for trying to surprise her and for making it as far as I did. No matter how badly I screwed up, she still loved me and cared about me. Instead of dwelling on my failure, she helped me to focus on the purity of my intentions. The lesson that day was learn from my mistakes, but don't forget what your intentions were when you made those mistakes. Needless to say when the kitchen was redone, she had the oven fixed."
Frisk finished, and Sans didn't reply. Closing her eyes, Frisk listened as the echo flowers repeated her story back to her. It was so much better than the eerie silence that followed her and the others for the past two days.
"I don't know how I'm going to top that," Sans said a minute later. Frisk turned her attention back to him, and he continued, "Papyrus and I moved around a lot when we were kids, so it's not like I have a lack of stories to tell. It's just I don't believe any of them are as wholesome as yours."
"Funny's good," Frisk suggested. She grinned. "Knowing you wacky skeletons, I don't doubt you have a skele-ton of funny stories up your sleeve."
Sans laughed, the sound more hearty and good natured than Frisk had ever heard from him before. "There was this one time when we were thirteen Papyrus and I pretended to be each other after moving to a new school. I don't remember why we decided to do it – maybe it was because I had gym and he didn't so I came up with the idea to get out of class – and for weeks everyone thought I was Papyrus and he was Sans. We still acted like ourselves even if we used the other's name, so it was one of our more harmless tricks; but oh, just imagine the trouble we got into when our parents and the school found out what we were doing."
Frisk laughed. "Please tell me you didn't sabotage your brother's report card while he did all those gym classes for you."
"Hey," Sans lightly nudged her with his elbow, "I'm lazy, not stupid. He got straight Cs for that semester."
"Poor Papyrus." Frisk shook her head as she kept laughing. "Did you ever switch places again?"
"Kid, Papyrus and I are twins. Of course we kept switching places." Sans began counting on his fingers. "We switched places when I was chosen to host a fall festival but Papyrus wanted to do it instead, one time I took Papyrus's place in a school play because he had gotten sick, and there was this instance we tricked the school photographer into thinking we were each other. In that yearbook, my name is under Papyrus's picture and his name is under mine. The best part about most of these instances is almost nobody was ever fooled. Papyrus and I never looked alike, but people still chose to entertain us. Although looking back, I think we caused too much trouble in the beginning for them to even care by that point."
Shifting her weight so now she leaned closer to Sans, Frisk said, "It must be great to have a sibling. Sounds like a born partner in crime."
"Or an innocent to drag along into your shenanigans. Whichever."
Taking a deep breath, Frisk closed her eyes and again listened to the echo flowers. Not a single one around them was silent. It made Frisk smile.
"How do you plan to face King Asgore?" Sans asked, jolting Frisk out of the happy mood.
Frisk frowned as she looked at Sans and chewed her lip before answering, "I don't know."
"Do you plan to kill him?"
"No. Or at least I don't want to."
"He'll kill you. Might even kill you more than a dozen times."
"I'm aware, but trust me, I don't want to die anymore than you want the timelines messed up."
When Sans didn't respond, Frisk listened to the echo flowers. Fortunately, they still repeated hers and Sans's stories and didn't pick up on their somber topic. She wanted to leave happy memories behind, not depressing ones.
"What are you fighting for?" Sans then asked, again looking ahead. "Is this really just a selfish quest to escape the Underground, or do you have more in mind? Is there something greater you wish to accomplish?"
Frisk took three deep breaths before she answered. "I don't know. I honestly don't know. A large part of me believes there is more, but I don't know what that 'more' is."
"Well, you better find it soon," Sans said. Nothing about the words hinted at irritation or frustration. "We may be following you to keep your impulsive backside from getting yourself killed again, but that doesn't mean we're going to stick by you if your ultimate plan is to leave us behind after everything."
"I don't want to leave you all behind," Frisk replied. "You're my friends. How can I just walk away after everything you're doing for me?"
"You do run away a lot, if I need to remind you."
Sighing, Frisk forced the words out. "Okay, you have a point there. I can't fully explain what's been propelling me to keep going despite everything. First I wanted to fulfill Mom's dying wish, but now I'm not sure it's what I really want. Sure, reaching the barrier is an ultimate goal, and I get facing King Asgore isn't exactly optional to get there, but I don't know what I'm going to do with it. I'm well aware it would take the power of seven human souls to break it. I'm just one."
"Would you break the barrier, if you could?" Frisk couldn't make out what Sans was thinking when he asked his question. She couldn't tell if the skeleton monster was concerned, hopeful, nervous, or a mixture of two or all three.
Not knowing how to answer, Frisk simply said, "I can't tell you when I myself don't know what I would do in such a situation. Most monsters want to rage war on humanity, and I can't let that happen, but I can't in good conscience leave monsters trapped Underground either. There's no easy answer."
If Sans had a response, he didn't voice it. Frisk didn't mind. When the time came, the two wordlessly rose to their feet, woke Undyne for her shift, and went to bed.
As Frisk drifted off, she strained her ears to listen to the echo flowers. Some still told her story, and others told Sans's. When sleep finally came, Frisk dreamed an echo flower repeated one other person who shouldn't have been heard.
"If I had the chance to do it all over, I would save everyone. But I can't. Please, Stripes, find some way to do it for me."
"Welcome to Hotland." Mon read the sign aloud as they walked through a tunnel. "About freaking time!"
"I know this place is literally called Hotland, but is it always this hot here?" Alice waved her face with her paws, the effort having no success in cooling her down.
"Not this hot," Undyne said, sweat dripping down her scaly skin and sticking her hair to her face and neck. "Any hotter, and some of us would roast alive."
"I feel like I'm melting," Papyrus said, Temmie resting on his head. "The Great Papyrus is turning into the Great Papuddle."
Frisk didn't add her own complaints to the mix. The heat was suffocating. Complaining about it would do nothing to lessen the suffering.
"Sans, how on earth are you still wearing that hoodie?!" Undyne exclaimed, narrowing her eye at her fellow monster.
"I'm so cool the heat doesn't even touch me," Sans replied, not missing a beat. It was hard for Frisk to not wonder if he really was fine or if he was so lazy he would rather suffer than exert the energy to take off his hoodie.
"How much longer?" Frisk asked, returning the focus back to the purpose of their travel.
"Half a mile ahead, and then a flight of stairs," Undyne answered. "Lots of stairs. Let's just say today is leg day, okay?"
Undyne didn't joke. Once they reached the stairs, it seemed as if everyone had to suppress a groan at how high they went. Frisk estimated that there were at least five hundred steps.
When they finally reached the top – Frisk didn't even want to think about how long the climb lasted – everyone collectively fell onto the ground and breathed heavily. Undyne threw her head back and cursed under her breath. Even Sans was drenched in sweat by this point.
"Tem exhausted," Temmie said, prompting Papyrus to tell her, "You shouldn't be tired. You've been riding on my head all day."
"I miss Snowdin Two," Alice muttered, "and I especially miss all the snow. What I wouldn't give to jump into a pile of snow right now."
"Please don't talk about the forbidden fruit," Mon mumbled in response.
"Well," Frisk said after she and the others caught their breath, "we're not going to get anywhere just sitting here. Let's see if we can figure out how to fix the Core, and maybe find some air conditioning while we're at it."
"Punk's right." Undyne pushed herself to her feet. "Let's not waste another minute. Let's go."
The seven of them approached the Core doors. Undyne's fingers hovered over the control pad for a moment, as if she dreaded her passcodes no longer working. Her fingers flew over the buttons, and relief washed over the group when the code was accepted.
When the doors opened, hot air blast out. Instinctively, Frisk threw her arms up to block her face. The scorching heat burned her bare arms, and she had to bite back a wince as she inspected the damage. Nothing too bad. A mild burn, but she would be all right.
To everyone's dissatisfaction, it was hotter inside the Core than outside with the flowing lava.
"Okay, punk, we're here," Undyne said, looking at Frisk. "I can already tell you that I don't have access to anything else here. So, what are your big plans for fixing this mess?"
Before Frisk could open her mouth to suggest looking around, a one-person applause sounded from down the hall. They watched as the other monster came closer. Frisk swallowed bile when she saw who it was.
"Well, well, well," Mew Mew said, "I'm so glad you all did me a favor and brought yourselves to me."
Nobody replied, but Undyne growled. Frisk's knees grew weak. She lost the ability to breathe at the sight of the cat-girl monster. As she started to fall over, Frisk reached out and took hold of the person closest to her. Sans wrapped a steady arm around Frisk to keep her upright. Too scared to move, Frisk clung to Sans as her eyes remained glued on Mew Mew.
"Oh, and don't bother fighting," Mew Mew then said, twirling a finger through her hair. "Fighting would just make a mess of things."
"Unless you want things to get messy," Muffet's voice hissed, and Frisk dared to take her eyes off Mew Mew to see the spider monster hanging from the ceiling.
"And if things get messy," said a third monster, and Mettaton came from behind Mew Mew and stopped beside her, "it'll ruin my hair and makeup."
Before Frisk could process any of it, Undyne acted. She summoned a spear and hurled it at Mew Mew's head. Without so much as stepping aside, Mew Mew tilted her head to dodge the attack.
"Very well," Mew Mew replied as if Undyne had responded with a polite decline of her offer instead of hurling a spear at her head. "Mettaton?"
Fists up like an eager child anticipating this moment, Mettaton said, "Absolutely, darling! Lights."
The lobby of the Core was illuminated, and Frisk squinted in the bright light.
"Camera."
Clicking sounds.
Peeling her eyes open, Frisk saw Mettaton's hungry smile as he concluded, "Action."