Chapter 25
"FRISK!"
Chara watched as the life bled from Frisk's eyes. Like a ragdoll, Frisk slumped backwards, the bone that had pierced right through her the only thing keeping her from falling over. Blood dripped from her mouth, open in shock at what had just happened.
All Chara could do was watch helplessly as Sans lea Frisk like a lamb to the slaughter away from civilization and any potential witnesses. Or at least any witnesses who could be seen and heard by the world around them. Just as Chara could do nothing to prevent this, there was nothing he could do in the aftermath as well.
Turning towards Sans, Chara exclaimed, "What did you do?!"
At first Sans didn't reply. The skeleton monster barely moved. He stared and stared and stared at Frisk's lifeless form.
"Answer me!" Chara demanded, a fire he never felt before igniting inside him. His fists shook at his sides. If it were possible for him to feel, he might have winced at how hard he dug his nails into his palms.
Chara didn't understand his reactions. Normally he found Frisk's deaths amusing. This time was different. Chara was sickened by what had happened. If he could, he would have prevented another death.
"I had to test a theory." Sans had no right to sound remorseful. Frisk trusted Sans enough to walk all the way out there alone with him, and he repaid that trust by killing her.
Although, Chara was forced to admit to himself, he had done similar things plenty of times. He had tricked Frisk, who blindly trusted him every time, to putting herself into the position to get killed. He wasn't any less guilty than Sans just because he couldn't touch Frisk.
When the day finally reset, Sans and Chara were both in Sans's room. Sans bolted upright in the bed, and Chara stood in the corner. Oddly enough, even though Sans didn't wear the locket to bed the night before, he wore it now as the day began again.
Chara made note of that information and quietly set it aside.
"What the-?" Sans looked around the room, as if surprised to be there. Chara was about to make a sort of comment about Sans forgetting to take the locket off before bed when the skeleton monster exclaimed, "That's the cause of the resets?!"
Although he tried not to show his reaction, Chara was sure his brows rose ever so slightly. Until now, he believed only he and Frisk knew about the resets. Yet it seemed Sans not only knew about them but remembered the days that no longer happened as well.
Not that Chara planned to admit it so easily.
"Resets?" He tilted his head to the side. "What kind of resets?"
"Don't play dumb with me, kid." Sans threw off his covers and jumped out of bed. Back in his pajamas, he rushed to change clothes. Unlike Frisk, Sans didn't bother to remove the locket when stripping.
Chara looked away out of inhibited respect, but he was rather disturbingly curious what a skeleton monster looked like nude.
"You really had ought to stop calling me kid," Chara said coolly, eyes on the bare walls. Like Frisk, Sans wasn't decorating his room. There were no plans to stay.
"I'm twenty-four, and you were eighteen when you died," Sans replied. "You're plenty kid to me."
"Being dead does not undo the fact I am chronologically one hundred and eighteen years old," Chara stated, even if he felt so much younger than his years claimed. "I am too much older than you for you to call kid."
"Fine," Sans, now dressed, said as he stalked towards the other side of the room to begin rummaging through his desk. "I'll call you gramps."
"Go back to calling me kid."
"Too late, gramps. You weren't happy with what I gave ya, so now time to settle with the upgrade." Chara saw Sans pull out a pin and tuck it into his hoodie pocket. "This is insane. How does Frisk control the timeline like that?"
Chara wanted to deny any knowledge of Frisk's ability to reset. However, he didn't trust what Sans was planning. In order to protect Frisk, Chara believed with an intense feeling of irony that his best course of action was to tell the truth.
"She cannot control the resets," Chara said. When Sans stopped midmotion to listen, Chara continued, "Whenever Frisk dies, the day resets without her input. I do not think she has much say, if any, in the matter."
Turning his head ever so slowly, Sans looked at Chara and questioned, "How do you remember these resets?"
"How do you?" Chara countered.
"That isn't any of your business."
"Good, we have the same answer. Hey, what are you do—"
When Frisk sat up in her bed, she clutched her sheets as tears fell unrestrained from her eyes. As much as she wanted to believe Sans didn't just kill her, she wasn't surprised he did.
At least she now knew she didn't have to waste her time asking for his help.
Throwing her covers aside, Frisk rushed to dress. Sans, Papyrus, and Undyne would be joining Beatrix and the others for breakfast – even without the resets it was still routine. Before Frisk never participated in the group breakfast, but this time would be different.
"Good morning!" Frisk exclaimed as she walked into the kitchen to see Beatrix baking muffins and Honey frying bacon.
"Good morning," the sisters returned the greeting. It was Beatrix who asked, "How did you sleep last night?"
"Wonderful," Frisk lied. "Do you need help with anything?"
"If you could pull out the muffins in fifteen minutes so Honey has one less thing to worry about, I would appreciate it." Beatrix put her batch in the oven and untied her apron. "Alice went out earlier to take orders. I should help her finish since The Island is so much bigger than Snowdin Two."
"Frisk, why don't you help them?" Honey suggested. "I can keep a handle on things around here."
Knowing the first time this day happened Honey forgot about the muffins and burned them because Doge had unknowingly distracted her with news from the outside, Frisk answered, "No, I would rather stay in this morning. I really should start listening to everyone who keeps telling me to take it easy."
"That's a good girl," Beatrix said as she slipped on her walking shoes. "Alice and I will be back in twenty. Don't feel as if you have to wait for us."
After Beatrix had gone, Frisk internally plotted as she helped Honey with breakfast. She needed to figure out how to take the locket back from Sans without his knowing. More importantly, she needed to find a way to keep him from taking it back again.
Despite all the times he had protected her and helped her when he didn't have to, Sans was now after her soul. Why he would want Frisk's specifically when he already had Chara's, Frisk didn't know. What she did know was Sans should not have custody of any human soul, even Chara's.
As she kept planning, Frisk told herself she was only stealing the locket back just to spite Sans. She wouldn't admit that deep down she wanted to protect Chara from whatever Sans was planning.
"Look who we ran into on our way back!" Beatrix exclaimed as she, Alice, Sans, Papyrus, and Undyne entered nearly a half hour later. Although Beatrix tried to sound excited, Frisk knew Beatrix still had not warmed up to Sans and Undyne after what they had done.
"Why didn't you invite the Great Papyrus to help with the cooking?!" Papyrus asked in his loud voice. Unlike the others, he walked in with gusto and greeted Frisk and Honey both with a hug.
"Please, you know how much we like to serve you and your friends," Honey answered, happily accepting the hug.
"Besides," Frisk said, purposely ignoring Sans, "I thought you and Undyne were making dinner tonight."
"Hey!" Undyne shouted. "I didn't sign up for kitchen duty."
"I did the honor of signing up for the both of us!" Papyrus replied just as loudly, too excited to use his indoor voice. "I thought it would be like old times, when you gave me cooking lessons."
This had Undyne lightening up. "Yeah, those were good times," she agreed. "After you were accepted into the royal guard, we didn't have time for it anymore. Then when you were kicked out—"
"Let's not finish that thought," Papyrus interrupted. "Our friends have made us such a lovely breakfast. We should thank them by enjoying it!"
After she had her plate made, Frisk looked to the table. Sans, Papyrus, and Undyne wrapped around one end of the table, and Beatrix, Honey, Peter, and Doge sat on the sides. There was an opening at the head of the table and the chairs on either side. None of them were an ideal place to sit if she was to get close to Sans.
"Frisk," Alice called from the kitchen, "sit with me."
Alice sat on the kitchen counter, plate on her lap. Normally she sat with her family, so it was odd for Frisk to see Alice sitting away from everyone. She didn't question it as she sat beside the rabbit monster.
"We need to get your locket back," Alice said softly, almost too quiet for Frisk to hear. Frisk had almost forgotten that the day before she and Alice had talked about Sans taking it. "Do you think it's in his pocket, or maybe he left it in his room?"
The question had Frisk shooting her gaze towards Sans and really looking at him. True to Alice's words, the locket was not around Sans's neck. Perhaps he had gotten sick of Chara and left the locket where Chara could not bother him.
"I doubt he would leave it unattended," Frisk muttered, hoping she was right. She didn't imagine Sans would just leave the soul of the long-lost prince lying around.
"I'll help," Alice offered.
"You shouldn't get mixed up in this," she replied. "My problems are mine to deal with."
"We're friends," Alice countered. "Your problems are mine, unless I don't want them. Then they're all yours."
Alice giggled, and Frisk smiled at this. Demeanor serious again, Alice added, "This is important, Frisk. What kind of friend would I be if I just walked away from the chance to help you in your time of need?"
"What kind of friend would I be if I put you in a potentially dangerous position?"
"You're not forcing me to do anything I don't want to do, remember that." Alice pressed her ears to her skull and tilted her head to the side. "I have an idea, I think. It's not dangerous at all, but it will require a lot of acting on your part."
It's a good thing I have a lot of experience, then.
"What do we do?"
When Frisk asked everyone after breakfast if they wanted to play bean bag toss, Sans was more than a little surprised. It already stunned him enough that Frisk ate breakfast downstairs in this incarnation of the day despite knowing Frisk was responsible for the reset to begin with, but this was something else altogether. He didn't know what, but Frisk was definitely planning something.
Mon came over just in time to join the game, which everyone except Sans agreed was a good idea and decided to spend the morning having fun. Mon and Alice were on a team, and Sans and Frisk were teamed up as well. The boards were laid out a few feet apart, and Alice and Frisk stood next to one with Sans and Mon on the other. Undyne and Papyrus teamed up and played against Peter and Doge on another set. Beatrix and Honey shouted they would play winner of the first game complete.
"So," Sans began, looking at Mon, "how exactly do you plan to toss a bean bag when you don't have any arms?"
Glaring at Sans, Mon growled before she kicked up a bean bag, spun around, and used her tail to hit the bag across the lawn. It flew at a great speed, causing both Alice and Frisk to shriek as they jumped out of the way.
"Like that," Mon proudly declared, grinning.
"Monika!" Alice shouted, hand on her heart. "The goal of the game is to get the bean bag either on the board or through the hole on the board. Not take out your teammate with it!"
"Sorry," Mon replied, her face growing dark. To Sans, "Uh, your turn."
No surprise to Sans, Alice and Mon were the better players of this game. Apparently they spent a lot of time playing bean bag toss back in Snowdin Two as competitors instead of teammates. Sans and Frisk, both of whom were playing for the first time, never stood a chance.
After they lost, Sans was frustrated to find that Undyne and Papyrus were excited to play more despite losing their own game. Peter and Doge taking a break this round, Sans and Frisk played against Papyrus and Undyne. This game was a fair match, although that was because Undyne didn't know her own strength and kept throwing the bag too far.
As they played, the tension that normally existed began to melt away.
"You throw like my grandma!" Undyne shouted when Frisk barely missed the board again. Sans and Undyne shared one station and Frisk and Papyrus the other.
"At least I'm touching the board!" Frisk shouted back. "Even if it doesn't count, I'm still closer than you with the bags you chuck across the yard."
"Careful how you talk to me or else one of those bags will hit you square in the chest."
"I'd like to see you try."
"No, you don't," Papyrus cut in. "Undyne is serious. She tossed a baseball at me once and missed my hands. I had a bruise on my face for weeks!"
"You can't even bruise!" Undyne yelled, and Frisk started laughing.
Sans thought this scene would have been a nice one if it didn't feel so wrong.
Despite killing her, leading the day to reset, Sans didn't see anything in Frisk indicating that she was aware of what he had done. It was then it crossed his mind that maybe Frisk didn't remember the previous days as he and Chara could. What Chara said confirmed Frisk was aware of the resets despite not being able to control them, but Sans was unsure if she was pretending to not remember or genuinely didn't know what came before.
After barely winning, Sans and Frisk's next opponents were Beatrix and Honey. They weren't as good as the younger girls, but they were still far better than the skeleton monster and the human. Sans and Frisk were wiped out within minutes.
"I think it's our turn to take a break," Sans said, eyeing the sweating Frisk. Although not a strenuous game, it was clear Frisk was beginning to overwork herself and needed the break.
Without speaking, Frisk nodded and lead the way to the back porch. They sat down on either side of the table and each took a glass of lemonade, Frisk downing hers and immediately pouring more for herself. Even though Waterfall wasn't hot, it was still humid. Sans didn't have skin, but he could still sweat and feel temperature to some extent. After playing three rounds of an outdoor game, the humidity was getting to him as it got to Frisk.
"Man, out of lemonade," Frisk said as Sans took off his hoodie. Standing, she told him, "I'm going to go inside and get more from the fridge."
"No, kid, I got it," Sans replied, also rising to his feet and taking the glass pitcher from Frisk. "You really need to relax. That game was too much for you."
"That game was perfect," Frisk argued. "I'm not throwing up or anything."
"But you're inhaling the lemonade like you haven't had anything to drink ever," Sans retorted. "I'll get the refill. You sit here and prove to me that you still know how to breathe."
Before Frisk could open her mouth to argue some more, Sans walked inside and retrieved the lemonade from the fridge. Seeing a bottle of ketchup, he snagged that as well and returned to the back porch. Frisk sat with her chin resting on her palm and elbow on the table, eyes glued to the others as they laughed and played.
"Here," Sans said as he refilled Frisk's glass.
"Thank you," Frisk replied before picking up a glass and taking the small, single sip from it.
"Still sounds weird to hear someone express gratitude," Sans stated as she set her glass down.
"My mom always insisted the importance of saying thanks." Frisk frowned. "Why is it so different in the rest of the Underground?"
"For one, the Ruins are cut off from the rest of under the mountain," Sans reminded her. "Another thing is since the queen was exiled, the kingdom fell into hard times as the mourning king, having lost his entire family all at once, struggled to maintain order. The kingdom fell into chaos, and it wasn't until the Revolt that King Asgore got his act together and became the hard king he needed to become that the system began to go back into place. Of course by then, common manners were more or less forgotten about."
Frisk tilted her head to the side. "You speak about it as if you were there."
"I wasn't born yet," Sans said.
"Did someone who live through it tell you about it from their experience?"
"Yeah, something like that."
"That sounds awful," Frisk replied. "Nearly the entire royal family is gone, nobody is there to maintain a sound rule, and everyone is left to fend for himself. I can't imagine how hard it was to live through that."
"The Uprising two years ago was pretty bad too," Sans said, not sure why he was talking about it. "Some intense Blues tried to overthrow the king. Long story short, it didn't end well."
Shivering, Frisk said, "I read in your monster history books that monster souls are made out of love, hope, and compassion, and there's no room for anything else. Yet the more I learn outside of those books, the more I realize monsters are just as complex as me, a human. We had wars and uprisings and revolts throughout our history, too. Now I'm starting to think monsters are no different."
Sans shrugged. "We can be super biased, I'll admit. Monsters wrote that monsters are made out of love, hope, and compassion, but that doesn't mean all monsters are good. Some monsters are good, and some monsters are bad. Just as some humans are good and some are bad."
"Shades of purple," Frisk muttered.
Sans didn't comment on it. Instead he opened the ketchup bottle and took a swing from it, chuckling at Frisk's look of disgust as he did so.
When somebody else offered to take a break so Sans and Frisk could continue playing, Frisk excused herself on the reason of an oncoming headache and left to lie down. Since she left her lemonade, Sans helped himself to it while the others poured their glasses from the fresh pitcher.
"Looks like you and the human were having fun exchanging banter," Sans pointed out as Undyne sat down on the porch couch beside him.
"It doesn't mean anything," Undyne argued, but she didn't sound convincing.
"Hey, everyone, shhh," Honey said, turning up the volume of the radio. The speaker's staticky voice filled the damp air.
"We have heard reports of the Core heating above its standard temperature. Although the ice from Snowdin is still reaching the Core as before, the Core seems to be overheating regardless. Worse yet, ever since the Uprising two years ago, the Core has been cut off from public access, leaving very few individuals with legal rights to step onto the premise as the Core contains an elevator straight to King Asgore's castle. I'm joined by Core specialist Whimsalot. Tell me and the people at home, should the overheating of the Core be of concern to us?"
"Yes, it should," Whimsalot said. "You see, the Core generates electricity for monsters Underground. If the Core malfunctions, we lose power. No TV, no Undernet, no nothing. To make matters worse, if the Core continues to grow hotter and hotter, we will experience underground warming. Underground will grow warmer and warmer until monsters unaccustomed to extreme heat will perish, and if temperatures still continue to rise, a fire could break out and burn our world to ash. This is a very dangerous situation, and we're unfortunately low on people with King Asgore's right to investigate."
"And are you qualified to enter Core grounds to see what is causing this overheating?"
"What, because I'm a Core specialist you think I've actually been to the Core?"
"This is scary," Honey muttered. To Undyne, "Do you have access to Core?"
"If Asgore didn't forget to revoke it, which I doubt," Undyne said, "but I don't think anyone is going to let me off this forsaken island to investigate what could prevent death for all the Underground."
"Or we could all move underwater!" Papyrus suggested. "Fire can't burn water."
"But the fire can raise the temperature of the water until we're all boiling alive," Mon pointed out, and Papyrus's smile fell when he understood that she was right.
"I should get Frisk," Beatrix said, rising to her feet. "This is too important a discussion to have without her."
After Beatrix had gone, Honey hopelessly asked Undyne, "Someone will investigate, won't they?"
"Unlikely," Doge answered instead. "King Asgore gave access to very, very few monsters he trusted, most of who are either exiled such as Undyne and myself or dead altogether."
"But he'll grant access to someone, won't he?" Alice questioned.
"He can't be too hard and stubborn a king to not take action," Mon commented. "He's had his issues and his moments, but all in all, he's still a good king."
"Mon's right," Undyne said, prompting Mon to glare at the older monster through her darkening cheeks. "I'm sure he'll send someone the moment he hears about this, but there's the thing of us not knowing until we hear the course of action he chooses to take. I'm confident in Asgore, but I can't confirm anything either."
Before anything else could be said, Beatrix burst back out onto the porch and shouted, "Frisk is missing!"
"Again?!" Alice's ears drooped. She started muttering under her breath about how she was "this close to no longer helping Frisk with anything ever again."
What Alice said sent a jolt through Sans. He immediately reached for his hoodie and checked the pockets. Even though he expected it, he was still shocked to find the locket was no longer there.
"You wanted to see me, Your Majesty?" Mew Mew bowed low to the floor, her forehead almost pressing against marble.
"I'm sure you heard news about the Core overheating," was how King Asgore began. "My people are worried, and rightly so. I thought long and hard about who the best person to send would be, and since Undyne is no longer with us, I have chosen you instead."
Mew Mew kept her head bowed to hide her gritted teeth. Even after sentencing Undyne to death, King Asgore still had a soft spot for the woman he knew since she was a girl. Had she died that day instead of going completely missing, Mew Mew didn't doubt her king would still speak of Undyne as such.
Nonetheless, Mew Mew took advantage of moving up to Captain of the Guard and the benefits that came with it. She also learned from Undyne's mistake of admitting to a failed mission. It was why King Asgore did not know about her encounter with the human or her discovering that Prince Chara's soul was still out there. Mew Mew didn't even tell King Asgore about his ex-wife's death. Considering the moments the king had when events from the past century still overwhelmed him to lack of functionality, Mew Mew knew some things were better kept as secrets.
So with all that in mind, Mew Mew sweetly said, "I accept the mission."
