#Behold!! Frisk With their back straight! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

songfell-ut · 5 years ago

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Chapter 3, still a-comin’

Cirumstances, am I right, folks?

If you didn’t make it through Chapter 2 or this is all 100% new, welp, this is a continuation of this comic by @lostmypotatoes, after which Frisk has gotten him to be her witchly apprentice, but now he’s trying to flake on her. ACTION

Sans was getting soft in his old age, or maybe from proximity to someone as aggressively good-hearted as the High Priestess, because he found he didn't want to demolish the entire wall. For one thing, without his magic, it'd be too much effort. More importantly, though, Frisk's rooms were many, many stories above the ground, and falling masonry could kill or injure someone below who hadn't earned it. Most important of all: Frisk would probably end up trying to help dig them out and put herself in danger.

He also figured that he had time to do things neatly and cost her less in repairs. Everything had been loosened by that first colossal blow, but he had to give it a few more whacks before he could start pulling it apart, making a pile of glass shards, wood paneling, bricks and stones in front of her office. Luckily, whoever had constructed the outside wall hadn't done a great job, or else it would've taken him all night. A carefully judged body-slam was enough to weaken the remaining support structures; a few kicks and a yank created a space big enough for the giant skeleton to squeeze through, and then he could see the barrier itself.

Panting, Sans took a moment to survey his handiwork. It sucked to exert himself like that, but he figured that sometimes in life, you just had to punch things until they broke.

Unfortunately, he didn't have that option with the barrier. The old stories came back to him as he stared at the golden latticework hovering outside the ruined wall. How was he going to get through without touching it directly or throwing something big enough to hurt someone below?

His eyes fell on the worktable and the vials of stuff he'd made this afternoon. Four hadn't been infused yet. Sans grabbed one, pulled off the cork and, with a speck of magic, willed the liquid to boil, burn, dissolve anything it touched. It promptly began to fizzle and hiss in his hand, and he had to fling it away like an idiot before it started eating through his metacarpals.

He did one thing right in throwing it at the barrier, which instantly melted and let the chilly night air wash over him. Outside, moonlight shadowed the bricks of a nearby wall that stretched almost all the way to the ground, ending in the roof of a building only a couple stories high. He could hop out, grab onto the brick edifice, climb down safely and be gone before Frisk even got back up here, never mind moving the statue and getting the doors open. From there, it'd only be a matter of time before his magic regenerated and he could take a shortcut home.

Poor Frisk. She'd tried. Hell, she'd survived his murder attempts and taught him a few things, and he'd never forget her.

Anyway, she was better off losing track of him and finding a smaller, tamer monster to work with. What was she even getting from him being here, besides a hell of a lot of trouble?

The question was supposed to be rhetorical, but as if in reply, he thought of Frisk standing at the worktable with her arm up those ridiculously oversized trousers, grinning and saying, "The pleasure of your company," looking up at him like...well, like he was her friend, not an inferior or a dangerous monster or a giant pain in the ass, pun absolutely intended. Of course, it wasn't as if she had many other friends, but he couldn't tell himself that she was just using a captive freak to keep her company; he already knew her too well for that.

This, right here. This was why he needed to leave now. The skeleton took a few steps back, gauging the distance to—

Whhhsh went something in his mental ear. He jerked around to see Frisk standing half in his shadow, half in the moonlight, with her veil in her hand and absolute murder in her eye. "Sans." It was a whisper, lost in the wind.

Shit fuck shit shit shiiiiiiit fuckity fuck SHIT rang in his head as the satchel hit the floor. "Frisk?" he whispered.

Frisk beckoned him closer with one finger. Unbelieving, he knelt, and she punched him so hard that he almost felt it. "Here is what's going happen," she said as he touched his jaw. "I assume you've blocked the doors, so you will go and unblock them, and I'll tell the guard that you were—we'll say you were fighting off an assassin, and everyone will be impressed when they see how much damage you did trying to kill him before he escaped. Won't they?"

Sans nodded helplessly. "How...how'd you...?"

"How did I get here?" She tossed the veil aside, letting it drift to the floor. "Let me tell you a story, Sans. Once upon a time – yesterday morning – I had a long talk with Dr. Serif. He said you probably didn't intend to stay for a whole month, and I needed to be on my guard, just in case you decided to pull a stunt like this. I didn't want to believe him, but I followed his advice, and lo and behold, less than a week later, I caught my lying, backstabbing apprentice trying to break his word because he was apparently too bored with me to waste time learning crucial information for the survival of his entire race! The end!"

Frisk had to pause for breath. The boss monster took great exception to that last accusation, and he doubted that was actually the end of the story, but he was afraid to interrupt. "Do you see this?" she continued. Sans flinched as the tiny woman ripped off her brooch and brandished it at him. "Dr. Serif brought it yesterday afternoon. It seems he'd taken some of your magic while you were unconscious, and not only did he refuse to return it to you, he said I couldn't be here every hour of the day, and I needed to have this if you ever tried to break loose. He infused it with enough of your power to teleport myself one time." Another deep breath. "Do you have any idea how angry I am that he was right, and I was right to listen? And do you know how sick to my stomach I feel right now?!" Frisk threw the brooch to the floor, where it shattered. The last bit of magic quietly evaporated, and she pressed the back of her hand to her lips, eyes unfocusing. "And...how do you stand—"

There it was. He couldn't believe it had taken this long to catch up with her—the first time he'd tried using a shortcut, it left him feeling like his head had been screwed on backwards.

The skeleton glanced at the open, crumbling wall, then at Frisk, who was leaning heavily on the worktable, eyes closed. Then...

The priestess squeaked as Sans swept her up into the crook of his arm and headed to the bathroom. "Put me down!" she croaked, thumping his clavicle.

"Yes, m'lady," he said, opening the door, poking the light on and placing her at the very back of the room. "Go for it."

Once she was settled and could puke in relative peace, Sans went to the double doors leading into the hall, replaced the statue in its niche, and headed back to the workroom. Her office door was blocked by the many chunks of wall piled in front of it, and moving them again would take effort, so the skeleton ignored it for now. He picked up the satchel and set it on the worktable, wondering if the wind was too cold for her and how, exactly, he was going to pay for this, in every sense of the word. After one more look outside, Sans made himself tiptoe back to the bathroom and ask, "You done?"

There was a pause, the sound of water running, and a much longer pause before she opened the door and stared up at him. "What are you still doing here?" she demanded.

Sans blinked at her, mostly for effect. "'Zat a trick question? I'm makin' sure you're okay. That magic can knock you on your ass the first couple times ya try it."

Her face tightened, a hard, bitter expression that probably shouldn't have surprised him. "You don't say." She turned her head to cough, resting her forehead on the tile wall. "Congratulations to you, Sans. I'm here, but I'm in no condition to do anything. Your plan worked after all." She pushed herself upright. "Good night."

Shit. "Uh...Frisk—"

The priestess walked right by to open the double doors. He heard her exclaim something about the guard not being there, and mutter that she'd deal with it in the morning. She barred the doors shut, which he hadn't even noticed was an option, and wobbled past him into her dressing room, evading his halfhearted attempt to steady her.

Hangers rattled. There was an occasional sniffle. When Frisk came out in a long crushed-velvet robe, she actually looked offended to see him. "Don't you have somewhere to be? I said good night, Sans."

Wasn't she going to at least try to stop him? Sure, she was sick and exhausted, but where was her determination? ...Was she so upset that she was determined to cut her losses and let him go?

That really seemed to be it. Well, Sans should have been elated, but he mostly just felt insulted. Besides, he couldn't leave until they got a few things straight, or else he'd spend the rest of his life trying not to think about it. The boss monster wracked his brain for a witty yet conciliatory opener, but what came out was "You're not boring."

A blast of wind howled through the room, flipping the lighter books open and ruffling the weighed-down stacks of paper. Frisk remained stock-still as her short, wavy hair fluttered across her face. "I beg your pardon," she said, colder than the autumn air.

"Okay, yeah, I admit it. I was gonna ditch ya," he said desperately. "But it wasn't 'cause I don't like you or I don' care about helping the other monsters. I—you remember all you heard about Papyrus, right?" Her expression softened a little as she nodded. "I had a dream about him last night that I'm pretty sure was real. Me bein' gone and him not knowin' I'm okay is killing him, Frisk. I can't..."

She stayed silent as Sans pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. It had been so long since he'd told someone the entire truth that he felt completely exposed. It was scary as hell, but he owed it to her and to Pap. "Ya gotta understand," he mumbled. "My brother's all I got left, and I'm all he's got. You've been nothin' but fair to me, and it's not yer fault there's no real way t'contact 'im. I just...I can't go a whole month without lettin' him know I'll be home soon, and I can't dream at him with yer barrier up." He sat down with his legs crossed, staring at the floor. "I spend too much damn time away as it is. He never knows for sure if I'm comin' back."

Frisk swallowed. "Why didn't you tell me sooner how important this was to you? And what do you mean, 'dream at him'?"

"I didn't bother 'cause you might'a thought I was lying to make you feel sorry fer me. I know I wouldn't trust me." The skeleton jerked his head at the ruined wall. "What I mean is, I can talk to Pap while we're both dreamin', but you wouldn't be there to hear what we were saying. I could tell him all sorts of crap, like how strong the High Priestess is and how much safer it'd be for us monsters if she was dead."

The priestess was silent again. Sans risked a glance in time to see her reach up to sweep her hair behind her ear, only to yelp in pain. Sure enough, as she raised her hand to inspect it, the outside knuckle was red and swollen. "Augh! How did I not notice this?" Frisk tried to move it and had to stifle another exclamation. "Wonderful. If it hurts this much, I must have broken it." She made an incoherent noise and started toward the rack of finished potions on the worktable.

Sans dimly recalled that humans didn't feel as much pain when they were scared or excited, and that it could catch up to them pretty fast. It also occurred to him that it was a bad idea for a small human to hit a thick-headed skeleton with her bare hand. "What are you doin'?" he wanted to know. "You can heal that up in a jiffy."

"I can't heal myself," she said brusquely. "I'm not very adept at healing to begin with, and I can't make it work on me at all."

That couldn't be right. "Ya mean to tell me you're good enough to hold me off and keep me penned in for days with no magic, but—"

"Leave me alone."

Her voice was so quiet and furious that he stopped dead. But as she picked a vial and started to pull the cork out with her teeth, Sans got up and held his own hand out. "Lemme see."

With as much dignity as she could muster, Frisk closed her mouth and handed him the vial. He put it back impatiently and beckoned again. "Not that, dummy. Yer hand."

The priestess gave him a long, eloquent look. When he didn't move, she placed her broken hand in his huge one, wincing as his thumb closed lightly over her wrist. It was hard to remember how to turn his magic green, but she'd been right about intentions: it helped to think about how badly he wanted it to work, not only to help her, but to prove that he was capable of fixing things as well as destroying them.

Sure enough, within seconds, his palm began to glow as if he held a handful of emeralds. When Sans could bring himself to let her go, she flexed it easily. "You've gotten some magic back already," she observed. Frisk smiled at him for a moment, and he couldn't not smile back. "You know," she said, anger rapidly resurfacing, "you're not only a lying reprobate, you are a huge idiot." She rapped her knuckles on his palm. "I've always had a barrier guarding the bedroom from any external magic. If that was the only thing keeping you from reaching Papyrus, you should have asked me to remove it."

Sans sat down again. "But—"

"As for the possibility of giving him illicit information, I will ask you this only once." Frisk moved closer, looking him square in the sockets. "Do you intend to tell the other monsters, at any point, that your race would be better off with me dead?"

He didn't even have to think about it before he answered, "Not anymore. You're pretty damn useful as you are, speakin' up on our behalf to the other humans. I don't see anyone pressuring you into screwin' us over."

A brief smile. "I'm glad to hear it. For my part, I don't mind letting you talk to your brother as long as you take me with you. I'd love to say hello—I've heard so much about him that it'll be like meeting an old friend." She stifled a yawn. "If you start tattling on me in some fashion, I can always pull the barrier back up."

"...You want me to...bring you...in my dream?" Blink. Blink. "But how—what're you gonna—"

"One thing at a time, Sans. First, we're going to bed."

"We're what now?"

"If you're not leaving yet, then we're going to bed, now. This mess can wait till morning." With a nod at her blocked office door, Frisk motioned for him to follow her into the bedroom. "Come along. There's nowhere else for me to sleep, and I'm freezing."

And so it was that Sans found himself lying rigid on the huge feather mattress, the priestess curled up like a cat in the armchair. He had no idea why he was so nervous; he couldn't even muster a semi-joke about her joining him in bed. "I've heard of this spell before," said Frisk, who seemed unperturbed by their proximity. "It's not very complicated. You've just healed me, and I've recently used some of your magic, so we have enough of a connection that I should be able to find you once we're asleep. ...The key word being sleep, Sans. You have to relax. I'm not going to eat you, no matter how short-sighted and dishonorable you've been."

"You're not gonna let that go, are ya?" he mumbled.

"You have no idea. We haven't even talked about repairing the wall yet." Her voice warmed again. "For now, though, don't worry about it. We need to find Papyrus and set you both at ease."

Now Sans felt nervous and extremely weird again. He turned onto his side so she couldn't see him changing color. "'Kay. I...yeah. Thanks."

"Of course," she said, as though it was the most natural thing in the world to do a favor for someone who had completely betrayed her trust, and turned off the witchlight. He felt her raise another barrier at the bedroom door, one solid enough to stop an army, and a thinner barrier disappeared from behind the headboard. "There," she said in the darkness. "We'll see how well this works. Go to sleep, Sans."

That seemed unlikely, but he'd forgotten who he was dealing with. When about ten minutes had passed and the orange light of his eyes was still going strong, something wonderful started creeping up on him, a soothing vibration that spread through every bone in his body before he even knew what he was hearing. It was Frisk humming, of course, and of course it worked; Sans was more than content to let the sound and her presence lull him to sleep.

He jerked upright as something hit his skull, reflexively swatting the air and yelling, "Piss off!"

The lights were back on. In fact, it was full daylight, or what passed for it. Sans rubbed his eye sockets, turning this way and that. He was still in bed, but the bed stood alone in the middle of an open, snowy field. Kid monsters were racing back and forth under gaily decorated trees, throwing snowballs at each other and catching him in the crossfire.

The skeleton brushed himself off, reasoning that the Underground could be a weird place, but it wasn't quite random-snow-bed weird. This must be a dream, then. Damn it...

Oh, well. At least it was a nice one, and it felt pretty real—his good dreams tended to be fuzzy, while every single one of his nightmares was incredibly vivid.

Footsteps crunched on the snow behind him. "Well, hello there. That was simple," said Frisk, looking around them as he got up. She was in her plush robe and bare feet, but seemed at ease. "So this is Snowdin. Which house is yours?"

"BROTHER?"

Sans froze as a familiar shape emerged from a nearby fog of ice crystals. "Papyrus?" he whispered.

"I KNEW IIIIIT—OOF!" Papyrus had run to give his brother a bear hug and fell straight through him, as if Sans was also made of fog. "WHAT IS THIS, SANS? HAVE YOU BECOME TOO LAZY TO STAY SOLID?" he accused him from the ground.

"It's a dream, bro. This happens every damn time," the boss monster said wearily. "Just keep it together and listen, okay? I'm here t'let you know—"

"WAIT. A HUMAN? IS THAT...KRIS?" Papyrus was staring up at Frisk, his face somehow creased in puzzlement. "IS IT REALLY YOU? I THOUGHT YOU'D BE...KRIS-ER, NYEH."

Sans snorted. "Not every human is Kris, Pap. Don't be racist."

"Hello," Frisk said, offering a bright smile and a hand up. "My name is Frisk. It's wonderful to meet you, Papyrus."

"YES, IT IS. NYEH-HEH-HEH! YOU ARE CLEARLY VERY WISE AND ATTRACTIVE, HUMAN!" Papyrus brushed the snow from his fake armor, throwing his red scarf back over his shoulder in so dramatic a fashion that he didn't notice Frisk grinning, though Sans sure did. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY GREAT AND ATTRACTIVE DREAM?" he added.

Still smiling, Frisk watched the pack of young monsters run by. The monsters didn't seem to notice them, though the bed was still there and her purple robe stood out like a dark beacon against the snow. "Your brother wanted to see you, and I decided to come along," she explained. "Sans was captured by humans about a week ago when he was out looking for food, but please don't worry about—"

"CAPTURED?!" Papyrus clapped both hands to his skull. "THIS IS TERRIBLE! PLEASE DE-CAPTURE HIM IMMEDIATELY, HUMAN, OR ELSE I...I...!"

"Pap! Take it easy. She's okay. 'Fact, she's the reason I ain't dead or enslaved right now." Sans plucked at his shirt. "See, she even got me some new duds. You can finally stop bitching about what I'm wearin'."

Papyrus stopped flailing long enough to examine Sans' shirt. "NYEH! I SEE NO HOLES OR QUESTIONABLE STAINS. WHAT SORCERY IS THIS?"

Sans smirked, letting his brother poke at him in vain. "I told ya, bro, I just got it. You don't hafta rip me apart like this."

Frisk rocked back and forth on her heels. "So," she said over Papyrus' exasperated groaning, "I gather you knew a boy named Kris from the last human delegation. Is that right?"

"YES, IT IS RIGHT! KRIS WAS OUR DEAR FRIEND," Papyrus said as Sans grimaced and turned away. "WE WENT FOR WALKS AND HAD SLEEPOVERS, AND MADE HAND PUPPETS THAT ALSO HAD SLEEPOVERS. IT WAS LIKE HAVING A CUTE LITTLE PET THAT CLEANED UP AFTER ITSELF. WE'VE ALL MISSED HIM VERY MUCH, NYEHHH."

"Yeah, he left with the other humans," Sans muttered. "Can we please move on now?"

"Yes, of course. I'm going to borrow your brother for a few more weeks," Frisk told Papyrus. The latter was glaring at his brother's new shirt again, as if daring it to make a false move. "I have a plan to start making peace between monsters and humans," she continued, "but I need a monster's help to do it. Can you get along without Sans until I send him back to the Underground?"

"HMMMM." Papyrus straightened, one hand on his chin. "YOU WON'T HURT HIM?" he asked, sounding almost timid.

"Absolutely not, Papyrus," she said firmly. "He'll be back safe and sound."

Papyrus nodded, evidently impressed by her sincerity. "I AM IMPRESSED BY YOUR SINCERITY, HUMAN. IF THIS DREAM IS NOT MY MAGNIFICENT IMAGINATION PLAYING TRICKS ON ME AGAIN, THEN I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, SHALL SPARE MY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING BROTHER FOR A LITTLE WHILE LONGER. NYEH-HEH-HEH!" Without warning, the skeleton grabbed at Sans' wrist bones. "HUMAN! I WOULD LIKE TO TALK TO MY BROTHER IN SECRET FOR A MOMENT, IF YOU WILL PLEASE EXCUSE US. IT WILL BE SECRET!"

"Of course," said Frisk. "I'll be right here. Just make sure it's not too secret, please."

Sans covered his face with his hand as Papyrus marched toward the fog bank, still holding his brother's imaginary wrist. "Ya can't touch me, remember?" Sans called after him.

"...I KNEW THAT. CONGRATULATIONS, BROTHER! YOU HAVE PASSED THIS TEST! NYEH. ...HEH." Papyrus waited for Sans to join him, and they walked towards the river. "ARE YOU SURE THAT'S NOT KRIS?" the younger skeleton asked doubtfully.

Sans laughed, jerking his thumb in Frisk's direction. "Does that human look like a sixteen-ish-year-old boy?"

"HMM. NO, IT LOOKS LIKE A HUMAN. BUT! IT SEEMS DELIGHTFUL! THE GREAT PAPYRUS THINKS YOU SHOULD BRING IT BACK HERE WITH YOU. IT'S BEEN TOO LONG SINCE WE HAD A HUMAN TO PILLOW-FIGHT WITH, NYEH-HEH-HEH."

"That's probably not a great idea," Sans remarked.

"NYEH-HEH! WHY NOT?"

"I could spend literally the rest of the night tellin' you all the reasons why not, but the biggest one is that she's the High Priestess, Pap. The other humans would definitely notice if she was gone."

"HIGH PRIESTESS?" Papyrus cocked his head in perplexity. "WHY WOULD A DELIGHTFUL HUMAN BE A HIGH PRIESTESS? DON'T THEY CREATE BARRIERS?"

"It's complicated, bro. Look, I've gotta go soon. Is there anything else you wanna say?"

His younger brother paused, and sighed, shoulders slumping. "SANS. WERE YOU REALLY JUST LOOKING FOR FOOD? WHEN YOU GOT CAUGHT, I MEAN."

The bigger skeleton tried to kick a chunk of ice into the water, his foot passing right through it. "I wasn't slaughtering humans, if that's what you're askin'. I was mostly tryin' to track down monsters who've been sold off recently. But I did want to see how the humans' harvest turned out, an' it looks like it was pretty good this year."

Papyrus nodded, still troubled. "ALL RIGHT, BROTHER. I UNDERSTAND. PLEASE, JUST...TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. NYEH."

"You too, Pap." Sans felt a familiar stab of trepidation and backed away. "Shit, I've got a nightmare coming. I'll see ya soon, okay? Don't tell anyone about Frisk!"

He had to turn and run before Papyrus could answer. Frisk was sitting on the bed in the snow field, ducking snowballs. She turned and started to say, "I hope you weren't telling on m—"

"No more dream! End it now!" he panted.

The priestess didn't waste time asking stupid questions. As the nightmare nipped at Sans' heel, Frisk made a quick swiping gesture, and just like that, he was back in bed, in the bedroom, staring at the sun-washed ceiling.

The skeleton sighed in relief. He rested his forearm across his eyes. Between the radius and ulna, he could see the flickering shadows of birds flying past the open windows. "Thanks, kiddo," he said, "an' thanks for lettin' me talk to him. I really appreciate it." Sans scratched the top of his skull, rolling over to face Frisk. "So, how'd you like Papyrus? He's a cool guy, huh?"

Frisk didn't answer, because she wasn't there. A strange human child sat in the armchair, perched on the edge of the seat, holding a kitchen knife. It stared at him with red-shining eyes, teeth bared in a horrible grin.

If Sans had had more than a shred of magic left, he would have pulled all his blasters at once and obliterated half the building. As it was, he jerked back, nearly choking in terror. The child wasn't moving, but menace radiated off it like heat from a furnace, eyes boring into him as its grin widened. Sans looked around wildly for an escape. The windows were too small, but maybe he could—

A sharp whistle split the air. The barrier snapped on, and the child vanished.

Sans was sitting upright in bed again, in the dark, awake, panting as though he'd run a mile in a few seconds. "Sans, I am so sorry!" The light snapped on. Frisk stood at his bedside, wide-eyed, clutching the neck of her robe. "I didn't think I was going to have that nightmare again before we woke up! I thought it'd be fine, I—" She took a step onto the bed, leaning over to grab his humerus. "Sans? Sans! Please say something!"

He shook her off, and she stumbled backwards, falling into the armchair. "What the fuck was that?" he rasped.

Frisk sat up and pulled her robe tighter around her shoulders. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I should have warned you. It's the reason I have that barrier up in the first place." She swallowed hard. "It shouldn't happen again."

"It better not," Sans snarled. "What the hell was that thing, anyway?"

"I don't know." She looked so miserable that Sans wanted to smack himself, but he was too unnerved to lie and tell her that it was okay; he was shaking so hard that he could almost hear his bones rattle.

For a solid minute, the only other sound in the room was the wind blowing outside the shuttered windows. "I hope you had a good talk with Papyrus," Frisk said presently with a decent attempt at calmness, placing her palm on the bedroom door to dissolve the thick barrier. "I can see why everyone likes him so much. It's good to know he hasn't changed."

The skeleton grunted, hoping she was smart enough not to ask him any questions about him changing. "Yeah. Thanks for fixin' that up for us. Sorry I pushed you just now."

"It's fine. It was an accident." Frisk fiddled with the key in its lock. "You know, Sans, I'd like you to help repair the damage you caused, but...if you still want to leave, I won't stop you. I wasn't thinking of how much it was to ask, staying an entire month."

Sans stared at her. She wouldn't turn around. Finally, he said, "What the crap, lady? You already let me talk to Pap. That was the whole reason I tried to bust out of here. Why wouldn't I stick around 'n make it up to you? Ya really think I'm that bad?"

There came a soft knock at the door, startling them both. "Your Eminence?" It was a male voice, deep and pleasant. "Are you awake, my lady? Please forgive my intrusion, but His Holiness urgently requests your presence."

Daylight was showing through the closed shutters. "Yes, of course. I'll be there in a moment," said Frisk, running her fingers through her hair, eye twitching as she found a tangle.

Sans watched her, and watched her move to unlock the door, feeling a different sort of unease. "Wait a sec," he rumbled. "Frisk, wait. Didn't you bar the big doors last night? How'd he get—"

The man knocked again. "Just a moment," Frisk repeated, turning the key. She glanced behind her. "What, Sans?"

The door banged open. Before she could blink, a stranger in tattered clothes rushed in, his arm raised to strike.

The boss monster was already moving. The man lunged, and there was a sound of steel hitting bone; the priestess found herself staring at the tip of a knife, inches from her face, jutting from between massive skeletal fingers. "Sans!" cried Frisk, twisting around to look at him.

Red clouded Sans' vision, but one clear spot remained: with his free hand, he reached out, corralled Frisk and gently maneuvered her behind him, fingers forming a protective cage. The other hand flexed briefly, then backhanded the intruder so hard that the man rolled clear out of the bedroom, hitting the worktable with a crack and a thump.

The skeleton clamped his teeth on the dagger's hilt and pried the blade out from between his knuckles, jerking his head to fling it to the other side of the bedroom. There was technically nothing to pierce where the knife had been lodged, but it still stung. He glanced down to be sure Frisk was unscathed, then edged forward into the workroom.

To his great irritation, the man wasn't dead; he was not only conscious, but pulling himself up on the table. "Who the fuck are you?" demanded Sans. Only the vague awareness that Frisk was watching kept him from grabbing the guy and pinching his head off.

The stranger wiped the corner of his mouth on his sleeve, squinting against Sans' literal glare. He was gaunt and generally gross-looking, but had moved fast enough and aimed the knife with enough skill to peg him as a professional killer. "What's a big-ass talkin' skeleton doing here? They said you got sold off already!" The assassin laughed shakily. "So it was you bashin' that wall down! What the hell'd you even do that for? It took me all goddamn night to get out!"

Sans glanced at the office door, which was ajar. Several pieces of broken masonry had been moved out of the way by shoving the door repeatedly from the inside. The guy must have snuck into the office after Frisk left, while Sans was in the bedroom but before he blocked the entrance, and gotten trapped in his hiding place by all the debris piled against it.

It would have been kind of funny, except that if Sans really had left, Frisk would be dead now.

The young woman was leaning on Sans' femur, peering around his outspread fingers. He could feel her trembling, which only intensified his urge to kill something. "I know you," she said. "You spoke to me after a service last week. You said I...I..."

"Had a positively angelic voice?" The man leered at her, showing several broken teeth. "S'truth. But I needed to be sure 'xactly who you were. The last High Priestess used body doubles sometimes." He looked her up and down. "Gotta say, I like yours a lot better."

She shuddered. Sans leaned down, not taking his now-flaming eyes from the assassin. "You need this piece of crap alive, Frisk, or can I take 'im apart now?"

"Frisk?" The man cackled, slapping the worktable with a dirty palm. "That's your real name, lady? That's gotta be the dumbest—"

And just like that, he launched himself at Frisk, closing the distance and ducking between Sans' legs like a snake. He whipped another knife out from his belt and would have sliced her neck open if Sans hadn't been ready to nudge her out of the way, grabbing the assassin on the backswing and slamming him against the open door.

Before Frisk could react, Sans turned his head to the opposite wall and said, "Holy crap, what's that?" As she whirled around, Sans plucked the knife out of the man's hand and gave him one squeeze, very quick and very hard. "Whoops, my bad. Nothin' there," he said to cover the sound of ribs breaking.

The priestess started to turn back. "Stay where you are," Sans ordered, pulling the assassin out of her line of sight, stepping into the workroom and closing the door behind him. "Oh, no you don't," he said loudly, as if chasing the man down. "Nooo, stop! We just want to talk to...oh, no!"

The assassin didn't seem to appreciate the theatrics, especially because Sans was carrying him straight to the broken wall. Ignoring the man's feeble protests, the skeleton drew his arm back and murmured, "Now think about what you've done, pal," before tossing him out into the open air.

His only concern was that the bastard would make a lot of noise on the way down, but it seemed he'd knocked the wind out of him, ha. By the time Frisk peeked out of the bedroom, the assassin was long gone.

Sans shook his head and turned from the opening. "Nope. Sorry, I couldn't catch him before he told us who sent him." He wished he had his jacket; his hands had nowhere to go. "You all right, Frisk?"

The priestess gulped and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "No, I'm not." She slid down, back to the wall, and wrapped her arms around her knees.

She didn't seem be physically hurt, so for the moment, he said, "'Kay," and stared at the slightly open office door. "Son of a bitch. I'm gonna tear that guard a new one. D'you think he knew you were sleepin' in there, or was it just a convenient...place to...crap."

Frisk's shoulders had hunched and her face gone pale. Sans ground his teeth, cursing his stupidity. "Well, it's over. He won't bother you again," he reassured her, coming to kneel beside her. "At least that cover story 'bout the assassin ain't a lie now. Right?"

She didn't look reassured at all. With the threat of bodily harm removed, Sans was out of his element again, with no clue how to help her. Should he frame this as an inconvenient but probably solvable problem that she'd always known might come up? No, that would be dumb. She already had enough problems. She didn't need to worry about more shitheads getting in here to hurt her. As long as she was an important and politically vocal person, it wasn't like she could do much to...

Wait. That was it: Sans had the idea. "Actually, ya know what?" He waited for her to shake her head. "You were sayin' this weird stuff about me leaving once I'd seen Pap. Before we talk about that, I gotta ask, what's the going rate for a bodyguard around here? A good one, not just some moron following you around tryin' to look scary."

She bit her lip, a habit Sans had noticed and been distracted by several times already. "Um...it depends. A skilled full-time personal guard? Anywhere from fifty to a hundred dinar—"

"Oh, nice. I can probably—"

"—an hour. I only sleep a few hours a night, so..." Frisk gave him the ghost of a smile. "If you're offering your services, Sans, I'd be glad to accept. Would a salary of one thousand per diem be acceptable?"

Now he really was at a loss for words. "A thousand a friggin' day?" he repeated blankly.

Frisk nodded. Her shock seemed to be fading as she thought aloud: "You could pay for your clothes in one day, and I can negotiate the repairs down to about ten days' worth. After that, well, wheat is about five dinar a bushel." Despite herself, she sniffled again. "You could buy a lot of wheat, or beans, or...or wedding cakes, or literally anything else you want to take Underground with you."

He was patting himself on the back when, without warning, Frisk's smile faded. "I'm sorry I didn't listen to you before I unlocked the door." Sniff. "Thank you for staying with me." Sniff. "And thank you for saving my life."

Shit shit was as far as Sans got before he lost even that bit of coherence. His senses were already heightened by the unexpected danger, his SOUL still feeling a little queasy at how close she'd come to dying right in front of him; to cap it off with Frisk looking up at him like this with big eyes, messy hair, and her robe falling off her shoulder was more than he could handle. She never looked bad, but right now, damn.

Sans didn't realize he was reaching for her until his fingertip brushed her cheek, toying with a wavy lock of hair. "Don't mention it," he said gruffly. "'s the least I can do."

Frisk pulled away, face flushing, but only in momentary surprise. He devoutly hoped that she'd get up and go get dressed, or maybe pack her things, buy a fast horse and leave the kingdom forever, but that damnable woman didn't know any better than to smile and take his hand, or at least rest her hand in the space between two of his fingers. "Just so long as you keep in mind that you're still my apprentice," she said with mock sternness. "Do you promise?"

Fffffffff

Neither of them understood what happened next. Sans felt something welling up that made him want to grab her and...he didn't know what would happen next, but he wanted it so badly that he backed away in sudden alarm. All he knew was that this feeling – this energy – had to go somewhere, and if he directed it at her, he could accidentally mash her into paste. The only thing he could think of was to whip around, look for something else to latch onto, and focus his attention on the pile of stones, etc. by the office.

His magic was barely available, or so he would have said a minute ago. Fueled by the whatever-it-was, though, and with the barrier gone from one of the walls, Sans didn't even have to think about it: Frisk jumped back as the heap of debris by her office began to glow red, rising into the air and flying into the broken wall. To their mutual astonishment, the outside bricks and internal structures zipped back into place first, followed by more bricks, mortar, stone, wood, and finally the glass and lead of the windows. When the dust settled, the entire facade had been imperfectly but almost entirely restored, the floor sagging under the windows.

Sans stared at his hand, still breathing heavily. "Huh," he said by way of explanation.

"Indeed." Frisk absently ran her fingers through her hair again, working out a tangle as she examined the wall. "Did I know you could do that?"

"I didn't know I could do that." Now that the unfamiliar energy was gone, Sans found he wanted to sit down. He sat down next to her, comfortably but not dangerously close. "Welp, I need a break from life," he said, which got a laugh out of her. He snorted. "Break. I actually didn't mean that one."

Frisk gave a long, long sigh. "We'll knock down your fee to three or four days of repairs," she said gravely.

Sans couldn't help grinning. "I always knew there was mortar life than money."

She kept a straight face until he added, "Makin' it pretty again is gonna be a pane in the glass," whereupon she broke out in hysterical, snorting laughter, which cracked him up in turn and guaranteed a minutes-long feedback loop.

As nice as this all was, Sans was a little concerned when he got under control and she kept going, and going, and ended up nearly gasping for breath. "You okay, kid?" he asked. "Ya need some water?"

"Oh, Lord," she wheezed. Frisk wiped her eyes on her already-damp sleeve. "Sans, you're killing me."

Silence. Frisk thought about it, and promptly buried her head as far between her knees as she could get it. "I didn't do that on purpose," she said, muffled and sheepish.

Sans shifted his weight. He wasn't ready to admit to himself how badly the whole attack had scared him, much less to her. Just to check, he considered escaping again – maybe once she was letting him walk around with her outside and his magic was naturally restored – and now, less than twelve hours after doing his damndest at it, he couldn't believe how much he hated the idea. No problem, really; he could chalk it up to her letting him connect with Papyrus and needing to make it up to her. Also, holy shit, one thousand dinar every day for the next twenty-five days? That was as solid a set of reasons as he'd ever come up with.

"Well," he finally said. "Guess you'd better get yer scary witch dress on and go tell everyone about this whole mess." He snapped his fingers, making an odd click, as something occurred to him. That's right—I got both those knives off him. Maybe someone can take a look at 'em and figure out who he was, where they were from."

Frisk raised her head, staring into space. "No," she said, as if to herself. The boss monster looked askance, and she smiled in a small, nasty way he hadn't seen before. "We won't say anything." The smile grew. "I'll go about my day as if nothing happened, except I'll be accompanied everywhere by a ten-foot skeleton. Whoever set him after me will have no idea what happened, and it'll drive them absolutely mad. We can see if anyone incriminates themselves, but...ohh, I'm going to enjoy this."

"It's a neat idea, but the garbage threw itself out already, remember?" Sans indicated the repaired wall. "Someone's bound to notice 'im."

The young woman did a remarkable impression of shock and distress, eyes wide and mouth hanging open before she murmured, "That poor man jumped from such a height? What a hideous tragedy. Peace be upon his soul and those of his loved ones."

"Daaaamn" was all Sans could say. He might have killed the guy and covered it up, but he couldn't look that cute telling a bare-ass lie! Also... "Ain't you a priestess? Isn't that a little...?"

Frisk scowled. Despite her bedhead and furry robe, she was the very image of sternness and, yes, determination. "I was taught that it is my duty to aid the weak and be an instrument of justice against people who, for example, want to stab me in my own bedroom when I've done nothing to harm them. It's no sin to protect yourself."

The skeleton shrugged, holding his hands out. "Okay, that's enough. I think I love ya. Where do I sign up to kill people for you?"

The priestess laughed. "I bet you say that to every girl you try to escape from. And, please, don't kill anyone." She glanced at the clock, and her amusement melted into panic. "Dirt! I have matins in twenty minutes!" She sprang to her feet and made a beeline for her dressing room. "Can you please find my veil for me?" she called before she shut the door.

Sans also got up, muttering, "'Dirt'? Seriously?" as he retrieved the veil from where it had blown onto the table. As an afterthought, he returned to the bedroom and picked up the assassin's daggers. He studied them, saying out loud, "I think I'm screwed, is what I am," then placed them on the nightstand.

He heard Frisk emerge from her dressing room and went to meet her as she asked, "Sans, do you have my—"

He handed the veil over. "Thank you, sir." She threw the veil over her head and adjusted the headdress over it. "May I assume that you haven't been to many religious services?"

"Er..."

"Well, we have an oral contract, effective immediately, and I am going to church, so you are going to church." She inclined her head, moving toward the double doors. "Follow me."

And, of course, he did.

#frans #onwards aoshima

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post-office-inbox · 6 years ago

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Undertale & delta rune Sequel/Prequel/Post-Genocide/AU Theory

There seems to be a disagreement about what delta rune is in regards to Undertale. According to Toby’s Q&A that this is an alternate universe where choice does not matter. He also stated that Undertale and its characters had a happy ending and that nothing we do here can affect them. But there is still some discourse in weather the game is a sequel/prequel/post-genocide/au/some unholy combination of that. Strap in, I think it’s the last one.

To clarify, there will be four characters I will be mainly focusing on that the games seem to revolve around. I’ll be clarifying each one and how that character makes each of the “quells” possible.

Sequel: OK, this is the one that goes right into Meta territory. I think it is safe to say that in Undertale you were part of the story. Not Frisk, not Chara, you: the player. You are controlling the vessel in the game. This is backed up by how if you boot up Undertale Flowey calls YOU by the name you entered. Delta rune confirmed this by asking for YOUR name. You the player, and when you save low and behold, that is the name that gets put on the save file. Not Kris, your name.

So, we are controlling Kris for this adventure. That is why he ‘knows’ things that he couldn’t possibly know about characters that we know from Undertale. Like Alphs and Undine being together or knowing San’s even though both characters don’t know what we are talking about. Interesting enough Kris has information that we the player don’t have. When you go to inspect the card for the reindeer and he asks you why it looks like we (the player) have never seen it before. Also cute reindeer from class seems to be weirded out by the way Kris has been acting, so we the player are controlling Kris’s actions, not Kris himself/herself. Also, both in Undertale and in this game, right after cut scenes Frisk/Chara/Kris will turn to face the camera, right at you. This being an RPG maker game where you have control over what happens to the character sprites, Toby did this deliberately.

And of course where Chara directly interacts with you at the end of a Genocide run. AND Kris looking at you with a knife in his hands, throwing out his soul, the culmination of his being, the thing that we controlled him; is now locked away. And we can’t do a damn thing about it. My point is that for us (the player) this IS a sequel. The game that comes next. “Undertale 2”. The next point of reference that we can see and can control. Or rather NOT control as the narrative says: our choices don’t matter. That brings us too:

Prequel: Flowy tells us over and over again that “In this world it’s kill or be killed!” If we substitute the word ‘world’ with ‘game’ we (the player) can infure that in this game our choices matter. That depending on how we act we could kill or save anyone or everyone depending on our choice. Deltarune tells us up front that “in this world, your choice does not matter” that is telling us that in this game, evens will play out no matter what we do. One of the most frustrating parts about a prequel is that it is just telling you stuff that happened before the main event.

For example: in a story about Alfred, batman’s butler (I cannot frikking believe they are making that a movie) it does not matter what he does or who he met along the way, by the end of the film, he will become the character we know. We end up with a bit of predestination. Who will be our Pennyworth in this situation?

Sans. And possibly Papyrus.

In Undertale it is established that the two skeleton brothers just showed up one day. No other explanation was given and it was just sort of hand waved away. Later we got all the connections to Gaster and that lead to some speculation about this vague origin. Now, here comes delta rune. We see Sans outside of what is clearly a building representing Grilbies. And if you listen carefully HE SOUNDS DIFFERENT! His little ‘he he he’s are speed up from what we heard in Undertale. I think the Sans we hear here is younger, more fast talking. A bit more inexperienced, not seeming to know as much as he did in the old game.

There is this lovely theory going around that Sans is actually a Darkner. That does answer an obvious question I didn’t think about until then. Where is Sans moving from?? Answer: The Dark Word you just spent so much time getting out of, duh. (Papyrus not so much but?)

So we have his origin and possible timeline:

Born in the dark world ->

came to Hometown (possibly through the same door you and Susie got through...) ->

Something terrible involving Gaster AND Kris gets him sent to the underground in an alternate timeline/world ->

Undertale happens.

That’s how he knows that ‘kids like you, should be burning in hell’. He has already seen one world be shattered by one kid in a striped shirt go crazy and kill everyone. And that leads us to:

Alternate Universe: The tale of two Asriel’s. Or three possibly. Everyone is trying to figure out where the heck the beginning bits and the end bits ‘fit’ into the timeline. They kind of skip over the part where you are in a completely different game for the entire time, you know hello? Ralsei is one of the three party members for most of the game and is reveled to be a sort of espy for Asriel. Susie (and possibly Kris) seemed to understand this due the vast amount of “??????????????????????????????” she gives after he takes off his hat. We know that Kris has a brother named Asriel matching up with the one from Undertale (honestly I thought for sure that meant the ending of Hunger tale was cannon). With the bizarre way everyone in Hometown has a counterpart in Undertale why would there need to be a second Asriel?

Let me introduce what I think Toby is going to do here: enter the multiverse. Now it could be that delta rune and Undertale are alternate timelines instead of straight up different universe. For now though I will be treating them as different universes. We have three ‘worlds’ that we know of: Undertale, the light world, and the dark world. If I had to guess the dark world is somehow a reflection of the light world so they also have characters that are similar to Undertale counterparts, see The Legend of Zelda: A Link between Worlds. The Light and Dark worlds also mirror of how the humans and monsters were on against one another. We should be on the look out for characters in the dark world that matches with the ones in the og game.

I had a thought that maybe Sans is the Dark world counterpart of Papyrus so that instead of treating themselves as they same person they decided to be brothers instead.

I do wonder who the ‘Knight’ is that Lancers dad was talking about though.

Most of the rest of my thoughts are me just trying to project without much evidence. Until we know how Gaster and his followers fit into all of this I don’t think we can get much more out of it. Buy this being bizaro world the last one is:

Post-Genocide: Chara you poor creepy child. As everyone knows, in a genocide run, you kill everyone. Chara eventually takes over and kills you the player. Even though Flowey thinks you are the sibling from his childhood. You are not. You are the player controlling the character. The evil came from you. The vessel might become Frisk once you decide NOT to kill anybody but then Chara comes back and kills everyone anyway.

Now, we are in an alternate universe. Where our choices (the players not Kris’s) do. Not. Matter. And there is no Frisk, only a child who is this universes version of Chara. He did not die like in Undertale so now we live in a universe where that less than happy kid grows up into a less then talkative teenager. Where is Frisk then? Did Frisk’s own reasons for climbing the mountain (as hinted at by Asreil at the end of the game) never come to pass? Did just straight up die? We don’t know.

And having us act like a kid that may not exist in this universe really doesn’t sit well with Kris and he throws his will (US!) is in the cage. We told him about stuff. We knew about the other Universe and how things were different. And how little Kris was actually a guy called Frisk and he was a happy person that made friends and talked to people and didn’t kill anyone. If you didn’t do the Genocide ending anyway. Then you were…Chara.

Yeah, that’s the ending of delta rune ch1 guys. We see Kris throw us into a cage and since we were controlling him, he knows about the genocide ending. Since we told him how, he knows exactly what to do. A normal (if creepy) kid got possessed by some beings from some weird dimensions and knows exactly what to do with them. Pulls out a knife from nowhere and smiles (the kids smile, not one we made ) and his eyes glow red like in a photo he has seen through our eyes. The ones he is looking into as the view goes black. He has seen the ending and he has seen us and he knows he can kill us. All he has to do now is to kill everyone else. And he’ll do it too, because we can’t do anything to help BECAUSE OUR CHOICE DOES NOT MATTER!

TLDR: All four theories are true. If we look at them from four different characters.

The player – It’s a sequel because it is what you play after the 1st game.

Sans – Prequel because this is the world/timeline he comes from: see quicker voice

Asriel/Ralsei * – Are both au Asriel because of light/dark world and might have further indications that we should look out for * and a bunch of other people

Kris – Post Genocide because we controlled him and now he knows that’s an option.

#i could have combined my 1 & 4 together oh well #undertale #delta rune #my post #theory #god lord this is long #long post

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undertale-rho · 6 years ago

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Underearth: Book 1 - Chapter 12

Just as Papyrus finished his sentence, a burst of air created an air bubble clear of fog around them. Afterwards, Papyrus's eyes began to glow red. While they were glowing, bones began protruded from the ground and rushing towards Frisk, who nimbly dodged them.

"Papyrus, I'm gonna be honest. I don't like you, I find you very annoying, but even so, I don't hate you. Please, I don't want to fight you!"

"SO YOU WON'T FIGHT..."

"Yes, exactly."

"THEN LET'S SEE IF YOU CAN HANDLE MY FABLED 'BLUE ATTACK'!"

As he said that, his eyes began glowing a light-blue color as light-blue bones erupted from the ground and raced towards Frisk. Frisk held his breath and stopped moving as much as he could. The bones phased right through him without damaging him in the slightest. When they'd all passed, Frisk let out a sigh of relief. As he let out the sigh, it suddenly became difficult to stand and he collapsed to the ground, face first. While he was laying there, a bone came by and hit him full on. Needless to say, it hurt. Frisk, with difficulty, brought his head up to see what had happened. When he saw Papyrus, his eyes were glowing a deep blue color, the same color Sans's eyes were glowing back at the Gauntlet.

"HARD TO STAND? THAT'S MY ATTACK! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!!!

Frisk finally managed to stand up. It felt like he was twice as heavy than before. More bones came hurling at Frisk, who attempted to dodge them, but found himself more sluggish than before. With difficulty, he did manage to dodge them all.

"I CAN ALMOST TASTE MY POPULARITY!!! 'PAPYRUS: HEAD OF THE ROYAL GUARD'!"

That's his goal!?

"PAPYRUS: UNPARALELLED SPAGHETTORE!"

As Papyrus was monologuing, bones continued being summoned and launched at Frisk, who kept dodging and occasionally getting hit.

"UNDYNE WILL BE REALLY PROUD OF ME!!! THE KING WILL TRIM A HEDGE IN THE SHAPE OF MY SMILE!!!"

Goodness he has high, self-centered ambitions.

"MY BROTHER WILL... WELL, HE WON'T CHANGE VERY MUCH. I'LL HAVE LOTS OF ADMIRERS!!! BUT... HOW WILL I KNOW IF PEOPLE SINCERELY LIKE ME??? SOMEONE LIKE YOU IS REALLY RARE... I DON'T THINK THEY'LL LET YOU GO..."

You don't say, genius!

"AFTER YOU'RE CAPTURED AND SENT AWAY."

Papyrus was beginning to get distracted from the battle.

"URGH... WHO CARES!!! GIVE UP!!! GIVE UP OR FACE MY... SPECIAL ATTACK!!! YEAH!!! VERY SOON I WILL USE MY SPECIAL ATTACK!"

Frisk was beginning to feel exhausted. He couldn't go on for much longer.

"NOT TOO LONG AND I WILL USE THAT SPECIAL ATTACK!!!"

Frisk collapsed on the ground.

"THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO GIVE UP BEFORE I USE MY SPECIAL ATTACK!!!"

"You... just gonna keep talking... or are you gonna... do something?"

Papyrus grew a slight bit irritated.

"BEHOLD! MY SPECIAL ATTACK!!!"

...

Nothing happened.

Both Frisk and Papyrus looked around. Nothing but fog.

"W-WHERE IS IT?"

They both looked every-which-way for a few minutes before Papyrus just let out a sigh.

"WELL, SINCE I APPEAR TO BE UNABLE TO CAST MY SPECIAL ATTACK RIGHT NOW, HERE IS AN ABSOLUTELY NORMAL ATTACK..."

As he said that, his head slumped down in disappointment and Frisk stood up. Papyrus then raised his arm, bringing up many, many, thousands of bones that all began to rush towards Frisk. He tried to back up, but when he touched the wall of fog, it prevented him from leaving.

"THERE IS NO ESCAPE! YOU MUST FACE MY ATTACK!!!"

Frisk took a deep breath, then ran towards the bone-field. When he nearly reached it, he jumped with all his might over the field. As Frisk continued forward, he didn't lose any height to his jump, and managed to jump over every single bone thrown at him. Papyrus just gawked at what he'd just seen before regaining his composure.

"WELL! IT'S CLEAR... YOU CAN'T... DEFEAT ME!!!" As Papyrus spoke, he was huffing through his words as though he was out of breath. "YEAH!!! I CAN SEE YOU SHAKING IN YOUR BOOTS!!! THEREFORE I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, ELECT TO GRANT YOU PITY!!! I WILL SPARE YOU HUMAN!!! NOW'S YOUR CHANCE TO ACCEPT MY MERCY."

Frisk, who was now feeling back to his old weight, approached Papyrus.

"Alright, fine. I accept."

As Frisk accepted Papyrus's mercy, there was a small explosion-like sound as the bubble around them expanded until all the fog was completely gone.

"NYOO HOO HOO... I CAN'T EVEN STOP SOMEONE AS WEAK AS YOU... UNDYNE IS GOING TO BE DISAPPOINTED IN ME. I'LL NEVER JOIN THE ROYAL GUARD... AND... MY FRIEND QUANTITY WILL REMAIN STAGNANT!"

Frisk thought for a moment then let out a sigh.

"Hey Papyrus, I'll be your friend."

Papyrus bolted straight around.

"REALLY!? YOU WANT TO BE FRIENDS WITH ME??? WELL THEN... I GUESS... I GUESS I CAN MAKE AN ALLOWANCE FOR YOU!"

I'm so going to regret this later, aren't I.

"WOW!!! I HAVE FRIENDS!!! AND WHO KNEW THAT ALL I NEEDED TO MAKE THEM WAS TO GIVE PEOPLE AWFUL PUZZLES AND THEN FIGHT THEM??? YOU TAUGHT ME A LOT, HUMAN. I HEARBY GRANT YOU PERMISSION TO PASS THROUGH, AND I'LL GIVE YOU DIRECTIONS TO THE SURFACE! CONTINUE FORWARD UNTIL YOU REACH THE END OF THE CAVERN. FROM THERE, YOU'LL NEED TO SCALE A MOUNTAIN UP TO ELYSIUM, AND CROSS THE BARRIER. THAT'S THE MAGICAL SEAL TRAPPING US ALL UNDERGROUND. ANYTHING CAN ENTER THROUGH IT, BUT NOTHING CAN EXIT EXCEPT SOMEONE WITH A POWERFUL SOUL, LIKE YOU!!! THAT'S WHY THE KING WANTS TO ACQUIRE A HUMAN. HE WANTS TO OPEN THE BARRIER WITH SOUL POWER. THEN US MONSTERS CAN RETURN TO THE SURFACE!"

Well isn't that just great.

"OH, I ALMOST FORGOT TO TELL YOU... TO REACH THE EXIT, YOU WILL HAVE TO PASS THROUGH ELYSIUM, AKA THE DREEMURR PALACE! THE KING OF ALL MONSTERS... HE IS... WELL... HE'S A BIG FUZZY PUSHOVER!!! EVERYBODY LOVES THAT GUY. I AM CERTAIN IF YOU JUST SAY 'EXCUSE ME MISTER DREEMURR... CAN I PLEASE GO HOME?' HE'LL GUIDE YOU RIGHT TO THE BARRIER HIMSELF! ANYWAY!!! THAT'S ENOUGH TALKING!!! I'LL BE BACK HOME BEING A COOL FRIEND!!! FEEL FREE TO COME BY AND HANG OUT!!!"

And with that, Papyrus ran back into Snowdin Town. Frisk just stood there, contemplating what he'd just learned. To escape this place and enact justice upon him, he had to face down the King of all Monsters. This hopefully wouldn't be a problem, but he had to prepare just in case it would. With that in mind, Frisk continued into the cavern mouth that lay open in front of him.

A Whole New World : Bonetrousle

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#Undertale #Undertale AU #Undertale Rho #UTRStory #Underearth #A Whole New World

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that1nkyone · 8 years ago

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maybe something with skelefrisk and their dunkle sans? perhaps an awkward conversation

“…Where did you guys come from?”Frisk had first asked the question a week ago, now. And they had not stopped asking since.

It was true that they themself were a little skeleton, now - but their circumstances had been very… unusual. Unusual enough for both skeletons to have been taken off guard. After some time had passed, Frisk had begun to wonder what the natural origin of a skeleton monster was.

Frisk had been careful, at first. They suspected that skeleton origins were perhaps… macabre at best.

But Sans hadn’t given them a straight answer. First, he’d nonchalantly sipped his ketchup bottle.

“that sure is a doozy.”

And then he’d left the room.

Frisk had pursued him at first. But his ability to teleport had made this a vain attempt. The next time Frisk asked, it was an hour later - and he was tending to the flowers in Toriel’s front yard.

“Where do skeletons come from?”

“you plant a thumb bone in the soil.” He said over his shoulder. “two weeks later, low and behold…”

Sans glanced back at Frisk.

“…you get nuthin’ but a green thumb.”

It really didn’t help that he changed the answer every time.

“we’re reanimated museum displays. my first stuffed animal was a lion from a taxidermy exhibit.”

“we came to life one halloween. think it was too much sugar in our skulls.”

“we’re what happens if you don’t put on sunscreen. those ultraviolet rays are ultra-violent.”

Papyrus had been around for at least one of these occasions, and he’d glowered at him.

“THAT’S IN POOR TASTE, SANS!”

Sans shrugged, slurping his spaghetti. “i dunno, bro. this is pretty good.”

It became routine. It was a challenge that Frisk was determined to beat, and something that even their dunkle seemed to enjoy.

It was two weeks later when a thought occurred to the skeleton child, as they watched the television next to Sans.

“… Wherever you came from… was it really terrible?”

There was a pause.

Their dunkle shrugged. “… can’t say it’s my favourite topic.”

Frisk twiddled their thumbs.

“I can stop asking, then.” They said, sheepishly.

“nah, kid - think i’ve been coming up with a lot of good material with these.” He grinned back. “…pretty sure pap would have given you a straight answer, though.”

There was a silence.

Frisk stared into space.

“… Why didn’t I think of that?” They mumbled to themself.

“to be fair, our skulls are generally empty.” Sans replied, knocking on his own.

#Skelefrisk AU

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diamondsareapearlsbestfriend · 8 years ago

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Sans/Toriel 30 Day OTP Challenge: Day Seven

day seven: laughter

prompt: “Your OTP making each other laugh. Jokes? Stories? Tickle fights?”

Sans' memory is hazy at the best of times, but no matter how many years or timelines go by, he's pretty sure he'll never forget the first time he heard Toriel laugh.

Some things from back in the Underground, he's still not sure whether they happened, or how they happened, or if they happened to someone else entirely – but that day, he remembers almost better than anything. The pause before the punchline, that fleeting moment of uncertainty as he realised he wasn't alone – and then those glorious, unrestrained, braying howls of laughter like nothing he'd ever heard before, right when he was starting to think he'd heard it all before, that they were all just locked in the same pointless loop until the next reset. Maybe you'd call it fate or destiny or something, if you believed in that stuff. Sans never did, but he did know back then, leaning back against that ancient forest door and listening to her laugh at everything he said like he was the funniest, the most fascinating guy in the world – and she was pretty damn hilarious herself – that nothing was ever going to be the same.

Sans always knew he wanted to keep making Toriel laugh for as long as she'd let him, but really, he was pretty much gone from the first time he saw it in person; not just the sound, but the way her whole face transforms as she clutches her belly, doubling over or throwing her head back as she laughs, throat bared and all her fangs on show with a totally unashamed, raw, almost primal energy that has absolutely no business being as attractive as it is. Sans isn't expecting to be as into it as he is, but hey, he's always been down for learning new things. Specifically, figuring out just how many different noises he can get Toriel to make – snorts and shrieks and howls, and sometimes he can even make her bleat, when he gets the ticklish spot right behind her ear.

He gets to learn a lot of her different laughs: there's the lighter, almost musical titter when she's in a good mood, pleased with herself as she pulls another delicious dessert out of the oven, or recites a particularly interesting snail fact or historical tidbit from school to Sans or Frisk or anyone else around to hear it, and then there's the shrill, high-pitched giggle that pops up when she's nervous or uncomfortable or trying to hide something.

Toriel is a terrible liar, Sans figured out pretty fast; she feels too much to be able to keep it from showing on her face, her eyes too wide and expressive to hide whatever's on her mind and in her heart. A little inconvenient if you're trying to plan a surprise party, sure, but Sans has to admit he's always loved that about her, how open she is and how easily he can read her when he gets to know her tells. Maybe it's a little because he got a little too good at pretending himself over the timelines – but mostly it's just the way Toriel's mouth twitches or how she scrunches up her nose right before she cracks, secrets spilling out in breathless, hysterical whoops, and then Sans starts too before he even has a chance to press her for details, until they're both just giggling like numbskulls at nothing, but it's worth it. It's always worth it.

The one that might actually be his favourite, though, that usually comes later. When they're just chilling on the couch, Toriel with a book on her lap and Sans sprawled out with his legs hanging off the end of the sofa and his skull resting against the crook of her arm or shoulder. He'll be telling her about his new genius idea of giving out discounts for every ten hot dogs or cats a customer can get on their head, or how someone's been stealing beer mats from Grillby's and it's definitely not him, despite what anyone says, because he's been pretty much set for life since back in the Snowdin days. Toriel might only be half listening, peering over her glasses at her lesson plan, but she'll still laugh, a soft, indulgent chuckle as she rubs the palm of her hand tenderly over Sans' skull, warm and comforting as a freshly baked cinnamon bunny.

It might not be as loud or as long as the first time, but it's real, and it's her, and it's perfect.

(Maybe later, some time further down the line, Sans will tell her he's pretty sure he's been in love with her ever since that first day, when he first heard her laugh. Toriel will laugh at that too and insist he's just flattering her, that he couldn't possibly have known that back then, when she was just a voice behind a door – but she'll still reward him with a kiss on his skull or a nuzzle against his cheekbone, and Sans still thinks that maybe, in some way, they've both always known it was true anyway.

Once, back in the Underground, he heard Toriel laugh and he started to feel like maybe there was hope, maybe there was still something, someone out there he could believe in. Someone who might be able to make all the timelines he'd trudged through over and over again worth it in the end.

Now, on the surface, he hears that laugh every day and he knows he was right.)

Toriel has learned many things, in her time, and come later to learn that perhaps not all of them were true. But if there is one thing that she has only come to realise more and more over the years, it is that one must be able to laugh.

Perhaps she had not realised just how much she had missed it until she met Sans; swapping jokes through that old forest door, she felt more alive than she had done in decades, simply to laugh again and to share that joy with someone who sincerely appreciated her jokes, genuine mirth rather than polite, insincere titters out of a desire to appease their queen. Toriel knows well that a smile can conceal a multitude of complications, because people rarely look beneath the surface as long as it reflects what they want to see, reassuring them of what they have already decided to be true – and having known him only as a voice, the first time she finds herself quite fascinated by Sans' appearance, the hard edges and sharp contours of his skull, strikingly different from her own pliable flesh and fur, and his teeth bared in a seemingly ever-present smile, a mask to the world of permanent amusement or indifference.

Yet Toriel has lingered for many hours listening to Sans laugh, and she only grows to appreciate the differences more from up close, when they are firing puns back and forth at one another; the subtle yet unmistakable shift in Sans' smile from merely a fixture to a genuine grin, his warm chuckle as instantly comfortable and familiar as from behind the old forest door, yet immeasurably more wonderful, more satisfying to behold in the flesh and bone– especially when she is the reason for it. Sometimes, when something truly tickles his funny bone, a tiny dimple appears in his left cheekbone, and it is one of Toriel's favourite things in the world.

Sans may have the superior comic timing of the two, maintaining a naturally deadpan delivery up until the moment he drops the punchline; indeed, Toriel is almost envious at times, because she is prone to giving the game away by laughing at her own joke before she can tell it – but she can still surprise him every once in a while, relishing the moment Sans' sockets widen before he lets out that wonderful long pfffft of laughter when she sneaks in a pun before he does, or recalls the somewhat perplexing incident when a child asked they could have their milk from Toriel instead of the cow on the carton. He'll turn to her with a high five or fist bump, which Toriel has just about learned to catch, but even if she does not they are usually both laughing too hard by then for it to matter.

(She may also not be above more devious means, having discovered that skeletons are indeed ticklish – or hers is, at least, especially his ribs and lower spine, and blowing a raspberry there is quite an effective method of persuading Sans to move when he does not wish to, which is often. Until he retaliates, digging his fingers into Toriel's sensitive sides until she is helpless with giggles, and war has been declared, both of them rolling around the bed tickling each other until someone pleads for a truce. Or – on one unfortunate occasion – until Frisk walks in and, having evidently misunderstood what they have just witnessed, runs away again covering their eyes with both hands and yelling “sorry oh my gosh Mom I'm so sorry I didn't know you were I really didn't mean to –“ before running straight into a wall.)

But sometimes it is the moment just before, when Frisk and Papyrus are eagerly talking about their hard day's “ambassadoring” and something will remind them of an earlier joke. Toriel has only to catch Sans' eye, that dangerously infectious twinkle of amusement in his sockets, and they are laughing before either has even said anything, her braying snorts and his deeper chuckles intertwining and building to something louder, stronger, virtually unstoppable until there are tears rolling down Toriel's cheeks and her stomach aches, but it is surely the sweetest pain of all. Frisk and Papyrus will shake their heads, exchanging fondly exasperated looks over their respective family members, but they know by now not to take offence; that it is just Sans and Toriel being Sans and Toriel.

Eventually, they will sober up, the warmth in her soul remaining even as their laughter fades away. Toriel looks at Sans, sees the kaleidoscope of emotions somehow contained within that smile – laughter and trust and love, all for her, so much brighter and better than she ever dreamed it could be, ever since that first time she heard him back in the Underground. Leaning against each other long after they have stopped laughing, his head on her shoulder and her cheek resting against his skull, she feels like she is home.

As long as Toriel can laugh – and as long as she has Sans to laugh with – she knows she has nothing to fear.

#30 day otp challenge #soriel #fanfiction #undertale fanfiction #literally just like 1.5k of dorks laughing i have no excuse #my fic

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aundercuzsomeonetookitalready · 8 years ago

Text

Beginning of a Story?

Frisk kept their eyes closed for a reason. A reason they couldn’t remember anymore. Despite this lack of reasonable memory, Frisk kept their eyes closed. It had to have been important, so they followed their gut.

Their gut was hungry. Unfortunately, they didn’t think flowers were very reliable food sources.

Deciding their first quest would be for food, Frisk got up and went off to explore this…place. They didn’t know why, but they felt reasonably safe here, as if it was a place anyone could come and be calm for a while.

Frisk decided they felt out of place here.

Sure enough, there was a talking flower.

“Well now, things are getting very interesting inDEED. Let’s what you’ll choose this time, my little monarch~.”

And with a frightening face change and laugh, the flower disappeared.

“Oh!”

Frisk startled at the sound of a kind woman, they felt kind of sad looking at her, despite never meeting her before.

“Have no fear child, I am Toriel, Caretaker of the Ruins. I come by here every day checking to see if anyone has fallen down.”

Frisk wrinkled their nose, this poor woman needs a hobby.

“Come!” Toriel gestured for Frisk to follow as she made her was out of the oddly pitch black room. “I will guide you through the catacombs.”

Catacombs? Weren’t those like giant underground graveyards? Oh well, too late now. Frisk trotted their [smol] legs along beside Toriel as she explained things about the Ruins such as puzzles and how to get out of a FIGHT. Talking to a stuffed dummy was a bit much, but it made Toriel happy, and Frisk had this odd need to make her happy at all costs.

They didn’t know how to cope though when they encountered a strange flying creature without Toriel, and ended up running most of the way through the Ruins. Frisk didn’t stumble on the puzzles luckily, they didn’t want to think about what might’ve happened if they’d failed them.

Frisk also encountered a sad ghost lying in their path, with whom they made friends with, and resolved to meet them again one day.

Soon, Frisk had explored much of the Ruins on their own, and now faced a second break in the path. Something in them was making them stay clear of going straight, and with the smell of something delicious coming from the left, Frisk couldn’t resist following their nose.

“Goodness, that took much longer than expected. Oh! My child, are you hurt? There, there, I will heal you.”

Frisk didn’t even realize they’d gotten hurt, but they felt much better afterwards.

“I suppose it was irresponsible of me to try and surprise you like this.”

Frisk grew curious about this, and confused their face to show so.

“Oh, come with me my child.”

Toriel led them into a neat, cozy home, and revealed that there was a PIE to be eaten! This made Frisk very happy, and only added to their joy and confusion when Toriel gave them their own bedroom.

There was the excuse made of a burning pie, leaving Frisk to their own devices in the room. Hmm, a basket of toys, an empty frame, some more empty drawers and wardrobe, and a box of shoes. The room was perfect, and Frisk had never felt so at home before.

They suddenly had the feeling they would give anything to keep this, and then that moment passed.

Frisk felt sleepy, and turned off the light before climbing into the bed for a short nap. When they woke, a piece of pie was sitting neatly on the floor. Hungrily, Frisk snatched it up and downed the pie in a few bites. It was REALLY good, and Frisk immediately felt bad about not trying to savor the taste.

Regretfully, Frisk picked up the empty plate and carried over to where they assumed Toriel would be.

Low and behold, Toriel was sitting quietly next to a fire, reading glasses on, a book in hand. Frisk timidly crept closer till they were right in front of Toriel, startling her out of her book-induced trance.

“Hello my child, up already?”

Toriel noticed their empty plate, and smiled warmly at them.

“Did you enjoy it? It has been a while since I’ve cooked for anyone but myself.”

Frisk nodded their head enthusiastically, and held the plate up for more.

Toriel chuckled, and ruffled Frisk’s head.

“We don’t want to spoil dinner more than it has been, my child.”

Frisk nodded, more slowly this time. Toriel clapped her hands (paws? Hooves?) together.

“I want you to know how excited I am to have you living here. I want to show you my favorite bug hunting spot, and I’ve already prepared a curriculum for your education. This may come as a surprise, but I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. Oh, I suppose that isn’t very surprising, is it?”

Toriel sighed lightly.

“Still, I am glad to have you living here. Wait, I’m sorry, did you need something?”

Frisk shook their head, instead climbing onto Toriel’s lap, and pointing at her book. Frisk never did learn to read very well, so they were hoping Toriel would teach them.

Toriel seemed delighted that Frisk wanted her to read to them, and began pointing to the pictures, talking and explaining a bunch of stuff about snails. Frisk wasn’t very interested in snails though, and soon they fell back asleep in Toriel’s arms.

Toriel didn’t know what to make of the child. They wouldn’t speak, and it seemed as though they liked to keep their eyes partially closed. She didn’t even know if they could read. Toriel took a deep breath as she lifted the child up from her lap to bring them back to their room. As she tucked Frisk back into bed, Toriel hummed a familiar tune.

“Sleep well, my child.”

Frisk ended up sleeping through the rest of the day, and until the next morning. They woke to the smell of bacon, something Frisk didn’t think they’d ever eat again. Drowsy still, Frisk stumbled out of their room, and into the kitchen where they found Toriel cooking. They think.

The stove wasn’t on, but there was definitely something being cooked. Frisk knocked on the doorway, grabbing Toriel’s attention.

“Good Morning, my child. If you want to sit at the table in the next room, breakfast will be ready shortly.”

Frisk nodded, and wandered over to the table. They climbed up onto one of the chairs as Toriel came back out with a stack of pancakes and a plate of bacon. Frisks’ mouth watered at the sight as Toriel put a couple of pancakes and some bacon on their plate, repeating the action for herself.

As soon as Frisk had received the okay to eat, they dug into their food with such vigor that Toriel might’ve thought they hadn’t eaten in days. Although, as Toriel didn’t know too much about the child, she assumed it was possible.

“My child?”

Frisk paused their eating before they took another bite and looked at Toriel questionably.

“Is it alright if I ask for your name?”

Frisk nodded, and seemed to think for a moment. They put down their fork, and hopped down off the chair. Frisk ran up to the book case, and pulled down a thin little book before bringing it back to Toriel and opening it on the floor next to her. Frisk gestured for her to look, and began looking through the page for the right letters. Frisk never did learn to write either, but they could at least recognize their own name and the letters that came with it.

Carefully, Frisk pointed to each letter they came across, and it wasn’t long till Toriel had written the name out on paper for Frisk to see. She looked at frisk for confirmation, and Frisk nodded quickly.

“Frisk?” Toriel said their name slowly and carefully.

They nodded again, and Toriel beamed at the child.

“Well, it is nice to know your name, Frisk.”

They resumed breakfast, and talked a bit more. Toriel asking questions Frisk could answer with a yes or no, and Frisk would simply point to something to ask a question about it.

When they finished, Toriel gathered the dishes to wash, and Frisk felt more comfortable with Toriel than they were before. They followed after Toriel pointing vigourously at the sink and then at them. This surprised Toriel considerably, did they want to wash up instead? Toriel only shook her head at the child.

“When you are tall enough to reach the sink, then you can, but not now.”

Frisk pouted, and Toriel ruffled their hair affectionately.

Frisk washed up in the sink, and changed into a pair of soft green pajamas that Toriel had washed for them. Frisk decided not to ask why she had pajamas in their size.

Toriel read Frisk a story before bed, and then tucked them in for the night.

“Goodnight, my child. Sleep well.”

As Toriel closed the door, she could have sworn she heard a very soft voice say ‘goodnight’.

So, tell me what you think? This is an au where Frisk stays with Toriel instead, which is why this is different from the original game. I don’t know if I should continue it yet, but I have MOST of the plot and important bits of the story written out already. I’d just have to add detail, but I don’t think it would get a lot of support, and I don’t want to make something no one will like. I will say it has a pretty good twist to it though, if I can get far enough in the story.

#frisk #undertale #toriel #home #a short story #maybe longer #it's just an idea right now

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zeroviraluniverse-blog · 7 years ago

Text

what makes Barcelona vs. Chelsea so special

Visit Now - http://zeroviral.com/what-makes-barcelona-vs-chelsea-so-special/

what makes Barcelona vs. Chelsea so special

Barcelona vs. Chelsea isn’t a “European Clasico” simply because every time they meet, the pitch is decorated with some of Europe’s most sumptuous talents. For a fixture to truly sizzle and fizz in the days and weeks before it is played, there needs to be some degree of a revenge or bad-blood narrative, a rivalry that turns an infrequent continental match-up into the kind of “must win at any cost” derby like Milan vs. Inter, Rangers vs. Celtic, Manchester United vs. Liverpool or Madrid vs. Atletico.

This one has all that and more, a fact that can be traced back to an overnight flight back from Moscow to London in early November 2004.

Jose Mourinho’s “Blue Machine” had just guaranteed qualification for the knockout round after only four months of his reign and four straight Group H wins. This was when the Special One truly was special. He had back-to-back European trophies with Porto while Chelsea had tripped up, inexplicably, on the verge of the Champions League final the previous season.

Jaunty Jose had the Midas touch, in word and deed. Earlier that night, Damien Duff had set up Arjen Robben for the 1-0 win over CSKA Moscow that guaranteed Roman Abramovich’s new European force would reach the last sixteen. Duff, a huge admirer of the modern Barca school, takes up the tale.

“Right from the first moment, Mourinho wanted the draw to pair us with Barca,” recalls the brilliant Irish winger. “We were flying back from winning in Moscow and the lads were all just having a bit of fun with Jose.

“We knew we were going to top our group so we were saying: ‘Who do you want in the next round boss?’ He immediately goes: ‘Barcelona!’ Our instant response was: ‘Are you for real?’ But Jose just told us: ‘It’s simple: We stop them playing and they let us play.’ Simple as that as far as he saw it.”

Mourinho knew two things. Barcelona, although on the rise, were still the wobbly-legged Bambi of European football. Reborn, but shaky on their feet having not won any trophies for five years and no UEFA title since 1992. They were ripe for a football predator to rip into them.

Secondly, Mourinho knew that in 2004, there was still an ideological war being fought within the Camp Nou. Nominally, Joan Laporta, fueled by his ultra-Cruyffist beliefs, was in charge. But the president had enemies within his board, most notably vice president Sandro Rosell and current president Josep Maria Bartomeu. Those latter two, among others, wanted Barcelona to be pragmatic, mirroring Chelsea by signing big, strong, athletic footballers and to dump Frank Rijkaard so that (future Chelsea coach) Luiz Felipe Scolari could take over.

Mourinho viewed Rijkaard’s Barca, where the Ronaldinho-Samuel Eto’o partnership was young but promising and Andres Iniesta had recently been the subject of a hugely fierce debate about whether he should be played or loaned out, as not quite ready to repel his brand of footballing fire and fury.

Sean Dempsey – PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images

Essentially, Mourinho was correct. The desire that this quixotic, remarkable, talented and ruthless man has had to inherit the good life as Barcelona coach stemmed from the coaching duties he undertook as understudy to both Sir Bobby Robson and Louis Van Gaal in the late 1990s. And it was evidenced most starkly in the “clasico wars” of 2010-11 when he was Madrid coach in opposition to Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona.

But the first time Mourinho caught a whiff of him being able to power his way past a “Cruyffist” Barca and potentially leave himself as the top candidate when the job became vacant was when this rivalry took bitter root back in Spring, 2005.

What followed over the next four matches was a flow of simply extraordinary events, landmark in fact, which set the tone for years of battles between the new, emerging Barca philosophy and the modern Premier League ideal which blended traditional English football beliefs with many of the best imported coaches, players and ideas. A battle that will rage again this week.

Back in 2004 the tone, belligerent and streetwise, was set immediately. Before the match, one Catalan journalist goaded Mourinho about his past as “merely a translator” at the Camp Nou under Sir Bobby Robson and he “bit his head off,” nailing what was, quite clearly, a false reputation. Then Mourinho offered to finish the press conference in remarkable style: by naming all 22 players who’d take the field the next night.

First he (correctly) listed the Barca XI before carrying on, “giving away” his Chelsea starting lineup. The move was aimed at taking charge of the pre-match psychology, to tell Barcelona’s staff and players “you have nothing I’ve not anticipated: I’m the boss.”

It was fun at the time but better still in the knowledge that he actually fooled his own players.

“I remember Mourinho telling me I was definitely starting but then he played a few ‘mind games’ with the press,” said Duff. “He’d taken me aside and said: ‘You are in the team tomorrow but I’m going to give them a different lineup in the press conference. I think he announced Eidur Gudjohnsen was playing instead of me.

“When I saw him name the team on TV, I started believing it and had to wait 24 anxious hours to discover that, lo and behold, I was in it.”

Of course, the fun stopped there. Chelsea significantly out-strategized Barcelona: Duff forced Juliano Belletti’s own goal and also crossed the ball for the moment when Didier Drogba’s challenge on Victor Valdes brought a second yellow and, thus, red card. Eleven men duly beat 10 but Mourinho’s accusations of collusion between Rijkaard and referee Anders Frisk led to death threats for the Swedish referee and his retirement out of fears for his family.

The return leg epitomized two schools of football. Barcelona, still delicate and pretty rather than streetwise and the steely competitors they’d become, were blown away by one of the most superb 25-minute power-plays you could ever wish to see.

“Barça were world-class even then but not a patch on what they are now,” said Duff. “We gave an incredible performance and it was down to us believing Mourinho when he said that we cold stop them playing.”

What about the unpenalized foul Ricardo Carvalho committed on Valdes so that John Terry could head home the winner from Duff’s cross once Ronaldinho’s hip-shaking goal that shook the world had put Barca in a winning position on away goals?

“Just a little nudge. The dark arts we learned under Mourinho,” is Duff’s verdict. The fact that Chelsea merited going through back then isn’t in much dispute.

Sean Dempsey – PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images

Exactly one year later, when paired again, the story was different, but similar. Barcelona had wised up. In winning 2-1 at Stamford Bridge they gave one of their most determined and most impressive away performances ever. Asier Del Horno’s horrific lunge with studs extended hasn’t prevented Lionel Messi seeing the birth of his third son this week, but it might have done. It was that badly judged, as were Mourinho’s words about Messi’s reaction being “theatrical.”

Then there was born the genesis of what makes Wednesday’s tie important not just to discover which previous winner (three of the last seven) emerges, but because it will form a new part of an epic modern dynastic rivalry.

Barcelona and Chelsea had four ties between 2005 and 2006 with two red cards, three own goals, one of Ronaldinho’s all-time sublime moments of creative invention, the birth of Messi as a great European power, Mourinho goading the Spanish media and Barcelona as a club, the ultra-controversial retirement of a top quality referee, a total of 14 goals, an owner (Abramovich) who coveted the admiration that went hand-in-hand with beauty of Barcelona’s play and Camp Nou board members who coveted the “bigger, stronger, faster” ethos when it came to Mourinho’s transfer market outlook.

We, the neutral football lovers, are the beneficiaries of the way this meeting of two ideals has become a European clasico. But I’d also argue that Barcelona have benefitted from Chelsea repeatedly being a thorn in their side.

Can anybody really argue that, over the years, Barcelona signing Eidur Gudjohnsen, Thierry Henry, Eric Abidal, Gerard Pique, Yaya Toure, Seydou Keita, Zlatan, Ivan Rakitic and Luis Suarez hasn’t been evidence of the Camp Nou club trying to blend what they cherish most — technique, passing, control — with what they fear most, namely pace, power, height, competitive aggression?

Roll up, roll up, roll up: On stage on Wednesday night, the umpteenth episode of a bitter, intense but beautiful and thrilling European clasico. Don’t miss a moment.

#Football

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nsschaintale · 8 years ago

Text

Chain 2: 200 Tries To Stop You

It was morning.

Maybe.

When Tether opened his eyes, he was back in his room.

Tether: What happened...? (sits up in his bed, looking around in confusion) I'm...back in my room? How? I was outside and-

Catena (outside the door): TETHER! TIME TO WAKE UP, YOU LAZYBONES! (walks into the room) WE GOT A BUSY DAY AHEAD OF US! COME ON SO WE CAN GO TO OUR POSTS AND LOOK OUT FOR-

Tether (jumps out of his bed): You're alive!

Catena: EH? WELL, I'M CERTAINLY NOT DUST. BUT YES, TETHER, I AM INDEED ALIVE. (gets hugged) ...DID YOU HAVE A NIGHTMARE? IS THAT WHY YOU THOUGHT I TURNED TO DUST?

Tether (lets Catena go): But it wasn't a nightmare! You really did die! Everyone did! I...think....

Catena: HMM...PERHAPS AFTER WE FINISH OUR WORK TODAY, I SHALL TREAT YOU TO MY SUPER SPECIAL SPAGHETTI THAT'LL FILL YOU UP SO MUCH, YOU WON'T EVEN HAVE ANY ROOM FOR NIGHTMARES!

Tether: ….You're the best, bro.

Catena: NYEH HEHEHEH! NOW GET YOURSELF READY! TODAY'S THE DAY WE SHALL CAPTURE A HUMAN!

Tether: Aah, actually...I need to check on something right quick. I'll, uh, meet up with you after I'm done, okay?

Catena: WELL, ALL RIGHT. BUT COME OUT RIGHT AFTER YOU'RE DONE! WE DON'T WANT ANY DILLY-DALLYING TODAY!

Tether: Then, you better shilly-shally your way out.

Catena: YOU AND YOUR.... (leaves the room)

Tether: …. I need to see... (tugs his soul out)

Tether's soul is an upside-down white heart with a vibrant bluish-purple hue and his Life Chain is over his soul, over his chest horizontally. Tether examined his chain, noticing a few kinks that are hair thin and this started to worry him. If something like this is going on, then...

Tether: This isn't good. When did I get these? I better get ready. Else Cats's gonna flip a casket.

Tether got himself ready and headed out to meet Catena. Once he got outside, though, something didn't feel right again. As usual, he'd run into Catena, says his bit about how Tether needed to fix up his puzzles, then leaves him at his post to go to his own. Tether thought about checking Catena's chain, but decided it wasn't going to be too bad. To be honest, he hadn't really been checking his Life Chain all too often, since there was never a real need to do it. He's never been in a battle as far as he knew, so his chain shouldn't even have any kinks. As Tether examined his chain again, he heard the doors to the ruins open. But instead of wanting to meet up with whoever that was exiting the place, he wanted to run. Something was trying to get him to run away and abandon his post. Despite that, he teleports to where the arrival is coming. To his surprise, it was Frisk.

Tether: Frisk... (bones rattle a little) Why am I scared now? Of a kid? (sees Frisk stopping at the bridge) I better catch up! (teleports behind Frisk) Human, do you know how to- (sees Frisk turn to face him quick) Ah! Um, heh.. Uh, chilly day, huh? I'm Tether, Tether the-

Frisk: I know who you are. Do you know me?

Tether: ….That's....what I'd like to know, tibia-nest. I mean, something about you is bone-chilling.

Frisk: …..Soon.....

Tether: Aga-

Catena: TETHER! ARE YOU HERE?! I BETTER NOT FIND YOU BOONDOGGLING AGAIN!

Tether: Catena... (notices Frisk walking off) Hey!

Catena (sees Tether and Frisk): OH, THERE YOU ARE! SAY, IS THAT A HUMAN?

Tether (stops behind Frisk): Y-Yep, sure is.

Catena: WELL THEN, GOOD JOB! (walks off)

Tether: That was almost a disaster. (sees Frisk start to walk off) Frisk, hang on.

Frisk (stops): …..

Tether: Hey, about what you said about it being “soon”. What do you mean? Is something about to happen? Did something happen?

Frisk: …..

Tether: Come on now. I just need to know. Are you...planning anything..?

Frisk: ….No... (walks off)

Tether: …..

Tether followed Frisk as they made their way to where Catena was heading to his first puzzle. He decided to watch the child encounter a monster, a little blue bird-like monster called Snowy Snowdrake, and for a while, Frisk was doing a few jokes with the bird. Tether didn't feel the need to watch them and was about to teleport away to his brother. As he did, he heard an ear-piercing shriek that left him shuddering as he arrived at Catena's spot.

Catena: AH, BROTHER! I WAS JUST ABOUT TO CHECK ON YOU! KNOWING YOU, YOU PROBABLY HAVEN'T EVEN- (sees Tether shaking) TETHER?

Tether (stands up shaking): Y-Yeah, bro?

Catena: GOODNESS, YOU'RE SHAKING LIKE A LEAF! SURELY, THE COLD ISN'T GETTING TO YOU NOW, IS IT?

Tether (calms himself): Nah, I'm good. It just goes right through me! Now, we better leaf before we're barking up the wrong tree.

Catena: NYEEEEEH, TETHER! YOU AND YOUR PUNS, I- (notices Frisk approaching) OH! A HUMAN IS ARRIVING!

Tether flinches.

Catena: QUICK! DO I LOOK PRESENTABLE!

Tether: You look great as always, bro.

Catena: OF COURSE I DO! I AM THE GREAT CATENA, AFTER ALL!

Tether: You sure are. (glances at Frisk) Well, lo and behold, it has arrived.

Catena: WHAT?! WHERE?! (looks around) WHAT AM I LOOKING AT?

Tether: A rock.

Catena: TETHER, WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME TO LOOK AT A ROCK?!

Tether: Heh, my bad. Guess that was a “rocky” start. But what's in front of it?

Catena (notices Frisk): IT'S! IT'S... …. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THAT IS.

Tether: Well, If it's not a rock, iiiit's...

CATENA: NOT A ROCK... IT'S.... AH! BY PROCESS OF ELIMINATION, THAT IS..A HUMAN! Keh-hem.. HUMAN! YOU MUST PREPARE YOURSELF FOR HIJINKS! LOW JINKS! MIDDLE JINKS! AND SIDE JINKS! GETTING CAPTURED AND OTHER FUN ACTIVITIVES! THERE WILL BE REFRESHMENTS TOO, IF YOU LIKE! NYEHEHEHEHEHAH!! (runs off)

Tether (makes sure Catena is far away, then turns to Frisk): What happened?

Frisk: …

Tether: Before I teleported earlier, I heard a scream. Was that you?

Frisk: …..

Tether: You can tell me, you know?

Frisk: …..Again.

Tether: Again? What?

Frisk: ….. (walks away)

Tether: …..What is going on...?

Tether followed Frisk again out of curiosity, just to see what they were up to. Like before, nothing was wrong. Unlike before when he teleported, he didn't catch what Frisk had done to an monster called Ice Cap. He arrived at Catena's first puzzle and watched him fix his puzzle. After he was finished, the brothers saw Frisk coming. Again, Catena seems to have recognized Frisk, but wasn't so sure, and again, Tether's hopes of Catena knowing the human child were dashed. As he watched Frisk not bothering with Catena's puzzle, Tether was getting a faint feeling of wanting to stop Frisk. But why? They're not doing anything wrong besides not humoring Catena. As the human kept skipping over puzzles, Tether was getting increasingly anxious and a heavy feeling was growing in him again. Once Catena left the bridge, Tether confronted Frisk again.

Tether: All right, Frisk, I don't know what's going on, but I'm getting a feeling you're not yourself. Tell me what's going on.

Frisk: ….Why?

Tether: Why? Because you were never like this! You never gave me your ans- (gets bypassed) Hang on a minute! (grabs Frisk's shoulder)

Dust.

So much dust.

The air was thick of it. It could be any monster's dust, but there was so much of it.

Like a fog of death.

Catena.

His Life Chain severed and his head sent flying, thrown down, or stomped on, his body collapsing in dust.

His voice rang true in his belief of a peaceful change in the human.

A red smiley face.

Such an innocent symbol of happiness, but bathed in red. Like blood.

Splitting its mouth to let loose a laugh that was like a child's.

But not.

Tether yanks his hand off Frisk's shoulder like he touched lava, a gasp escaping from his nonexistent throat.

Frisk (looks back at Tether): ….See... (walks away)

Tether (trembling): What...in the hell...was that...? (closes his hand into a fist and feels a gritty substance; looks at it and sees dust) Wha... (teleports away)

Tether made it to Snowdin Town and saw the monsters leaving towards the other end of Snowdin towards Waterfall. He didn't stop to speak with any of them, he immediately went home to find Catena preparing to leave. Something in Tether made him push Catena back inside their house and lock the door.

Catena: TETHER, WHAT IN THE UNDER-

Tether: Catena, listen to me, it's not safe out there! That human we've been seeing? I think they're doing something really, REALLY, bad!

Catena: I KNOW! I HEARD SOME RATHER NASTY THINGS ABOUT THE HUMAN, AND I THOUGHT 'WELL, PERHAPS I, THE GREAT CATENA, CAN ASK THE HUMAN TO STOP DOING WHAT THEY'RE DOING, AND CONVINCE THEM TO CHANGE THEIR WAYS!' AND THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I'LL DO.

Tether: What? NO! I don't think that's a good idea, Cats!

Catena: I SHOULD AT LEAST TRY. MAYBE THEN, I'LL BE ABLE TO LEAD THEM ONTO THE PEACEFUL PATH!

Tether: ….I-I sure hope so... But Catena... If anything goes wrong...ANYTHING...go straight to the evacuation site, all right? Promise me that.

Catena: ..ALL RIGHT, I PROMISE I WILL. BUT ONCE I HELP CHANGE THE HUMAN'S NASTY LITTLE HABIT, IT'LL BE OKAY!

Tether: I......(rubs the back of his skull nervously, sighing) …..I believe you, bro. I hope to the gods above that you're right...

Catena and Tether left their house and headed towards the outskirts of Snowdin. While Catena prepared himself to face Frisk, Tether hid in the shadows of the trees on the forest's edge in wait. He struggled to keep himself from shaking because of an urge to drag Catena out of the area. Frisk arrives and stands some ways from Catena.

Catena: HUMAN! I'VE BEEN HEARING SOME AWFUL THINGS ABOUT YOU, AND WHILE YOUR ATTITUDE SEEMS TO SHOW IT, I'M MORE THAN WILLING TO HELP YOU GET BACK ON THE RIGHT TRACK!

Frisk: …...

Catena: I KNOW YOU CAN RETURN TO WHAT YOU WERE BEFORE THIS INCIDENT STARTED, AND I'M SURE YOU HAVE A REASON FOR DOING THIS. BUT, I BELIEVE YOU CAN CHANGE, TO LET GO OF WHAT'S CAUSING YOU TO BE THIS WAY! WHY, I CAN EVEN BE YOUR GUIDE TO BECOMING A BETTER PERSON IF YOU'D LIKE! WOULD YOU LIKE THAT?

Frisk (steps forward, nodding): ….

Catena: AH, I SEE YOU'VE MADE A DECISION! YOU MUST HAVE ACCEPTED MY OFFER! (spreads his arms open to Frisk) THEN I, CATENA, WILL HAPPILY GUIDE YOU ON YOUR JOURNEY TO A PEACEFUL RESOLUTION!

Frisk: ….. (glances at the forest, then to Catena) Okay.

As soon as Frisk said that word, the sound of metal rattling and blade hitting bone rang out. Tether felt himself frozen in his spot. He could barely make out two long snake-like chain extensions from Frisk's back pulling themselves out of Catena's body and neck. Frisk walked up to Catena's skull as he tried to make sense of what just happened.

Catena: A-AH... W-WELL...I CAN'T SAY I S-SAW THAT COMING... B-BUT STILL! I KNOW YOU CAN DO...B-BETTER.... I...I believe in you....

Frisk: ….Bye.... (watches Catena's skull crumble to dust then walk away)

Tether watched through tear-filled eye sockets as Frisk headed towards Waterfall. Once they did, he forced himself to move towards Catena's remains. There, he just sat there and wept, not knowing what to do until he blacked out again.

Tether woke up again to see Catena preparing to leave the house.

Catena: TETHER, ARE YOU ALL RIGHT? YOU DOZED OFF WHILE STANDING AGAIN!

Tether: What? What do you mean? I fell asleep...?

Catena: DIDN'T YOU HEAR ME? I SAID I'M GOING TO GO TALK TO THE HUMAN! I HEARD SOME RATHER NASTY THINGS ABOUT THE HUMAN, AND I THOUGHT 'WELL, PERHAPS I, THE GREAT CATENA, CAN ASK THE HUMAN TO STOP DOING WHAT THEY'RE DOING, AND CONVINCE THEM TO CHANGE THEIR WAYS!' AND THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I'LL DO.

Tether: Catena, wait, I don't think it's a good idea. What's going on..?

Catena: I SHOULD AT LEAST TRY. MAYBE THEN, I'LL BE ABLE TO LEAD THEM ONTO THE PEACEFUL PATH!

Tether: Ah...Hey, uh, isn't it time for your chain maintenance? We should, uh, do that.

Catena: HUH? BUT BROTHER, YOU ALREADY DID IT THIS MORNING. YOU TOOK AN AWFUL LOT OF TIME DOING IT.

Tether: I did? Ah, oh, heh, I forgot. I must've lost my chain of thought there for a moment.

Catena (glaring): TEEETHEEER!

Tether: Good, gotta keep him distracted.... Yeah, guess I got a little tied up in my thoughts. But hey, it won't hurt to double-check, right? Else, you'd be in double-trouble.

Catena: ...FINE. (sits on their old black couch) I'LL HUMOR YOU JUST THIS ONCE.

Tether (sits by Catena): Heh heh, that's humerus.

Catena (grumbling): HRRGHMMNMNGH NYEHRGH...

Catena revealed his Life Chain to Tether and, for a split second, thought he caught a look of shock on Tether's face. Catena's chain is wrapped around his neck and connected to his vibrant orange-hued white soul. Tether was seeing multiple kinks and cuts, some deep, some faint on Catena's chain, especially on the neck chain. Tether was able to heal, but not as well as Catena. Still, he decided to take it upon himself to do it. He spent the entire time sitting in their living room, mending Catena's chain, and he could tell Catena's getting impatient, but he kept him distracted with some idle chat about anything that keeps his interest.

Anything to keep him from leaving and meeting Frisk.

It was odd to Tether that he didn't remember checking on his and Catena's Life Chain in the morning (considering how there was no real way of telling in the Underground), but now he's making a note of it. A note. Did he make notes on this? He'll have to check, but for now, his first priority is Catena's chain. It had been an hour after Tether started checking over their chains, and it was going fine until Catena decided it was time to go.

Catena: I APPRECIATE YOU REPAIRING MY LIFE CHAIN, TETHER, BUT I MUST HURRY AND DISCUSS WITH THE HUMAN THEIR LIFE CHOICES.

Tether: Do you really have to? I mean, I believe that you can do it, I really do. I just have this feeling that it's not working out like you wanted it to. I just want you safe, is all.

Catena: WELL, WHY NOT COME WITH ME?

Tether: Come...with you?

Catena: YES! THAT WAY, YOU CAN HELP ME HELP THE HUMAN ON THE ROAD TO PEACE!

Tether: I think that's gonna be a bit of a rocky road. Hope we don't get stuck in a hard place along the way.

Catena (walks to the front door): OF COURSE NOT! I THINK IT'S GOING TO BE EASY! (opens the door, grumbling about the pun) SPEAKING OF WHICH, THE HUMAN'S HERE!

Tether (stands up from the couch in a panic): WHAT!?

Catena: HELLO! WE WERE JUST ABOUT TO-

Frisk: You're late.

Catena: WELL- (gets stabbed hard in the neck and chest) AH!

Tether: CATENA! (grabs Frisk's soul and blasts them back out from the house and drags Catena back inside the house) Catena, hang on!

Catena: BR-BROTHER....

Tether: Damn it... Just hang on!

But Catena couldn't. His injuries were too severe and he crumbled into dust in Tether's arms. Before he could scream, Tether's vision went black again.

Tether woke up standing again, with Catena asking him if he was okay, sleeping while standing.

Tether: Wha-

Catena: DIDN'T YOU HEAR ME? I SAID I'M GOING TO-

Tether: Catena. Go up to your room and stay there.

Catena: WHAT? WHY?

Tether: Just trust me on this. It'll be better if I talk to the human.

Catena: I SHOULD AT LEAST HELP!

Tether: I know, but this human is dangerous, and I feel like I'll lose you if you go out there. So at least give me a chance to try.

Catena: ….ALL RIGHT, I'LL ALLOW IT. BUT I'M COMING TO FIND YOU IF YOU TAKE TOO LONG!

Tether: Okay.

Tether left the house to search for Frisk. He figured they would try to wait for Catena at his usual spot before Waterfall, so he hoped he'd be the first person the child meets.

They never showed up.

Tether decided it was a huge mistake leaving Catena by himself. Before he could go back home, his world turned black.

Tether woke up in the living room again. There was an overwhelming sense of helplessness overpowering him, and he just collapsed to his knees where he stood.

Catena: TETHER! (helps Tether to the couch) WHAT'S WRONG?! ARE YOU OKAY?

Tether: I'm fine.... Just...don't go outside.... Please...

Catena: ARE YOU SURE? (watches Tether lay down)

Tether: Yeah... Just....keep the door locked...okay...? I'm tired...

Catena: YOU AND YOUR LAZINESS. BUT FINE. (leaves to check on the front door)

Tether felt more drowsy than his usual bouts of laziness and drifted off to sleep. He soon woke up at his station near the ruin doors.

Tether: Eh..? When did I get here? (stands up then walks around the area) I was at home..trying to keep Catena from leaving. I fell asleep then.....what...? (hears the doors opening and a chill ran down his spine) Ah. (dives into the forest)

Tether had never felt like his life was in danger as much as he did just then, and this was just from hearing the sound of a pair of doors opening. He peeked out to see Frisk walking towards the bridge, and noticed something different; there was no dust on them. For what felt like the first time ever, they didn't look like they just came outside in the deathly white powder. This made him feel a little better, and he decided to greet them. Nothing bad so far. They were being friendly with the monsters they've come across. It was going so well now. They even did Catena's puzzles! That was great! Tether felt like things were about to look up. It felt like the nightmares he had been having lately were just that, nightmares. At his house, Catena was about to leave to meet up with the human, while Tether was about to make his trip to Grillby's.

Catena: I AM OVERJOYED THAT WE FOUND A HUMAN THAT LOVES PUZZLES AND HAVING SUCH A WONDERFUL CULINARY APPRECIATION! TOO BAD, I HAVE TO CAPTURE THEM, BUT! AT LEAST IT WILL ONLY BE THAT! A CAPTURE!

Tether: Hey, I'm happy for you, bro. You better hurry and ketchup to 'em, or you mayo miss them.

Catena: YES, I- (glares at Tether) NO, I'M NOT FALLING FOR IT!

Tether: Even though you were so ready to spring into action.

Catena: NYEEEEEH! LET ME GO CAPTURE THE HUMAN AND BE ON OUR WAY! (runs out the door)

Tether (chuckling): Ah, good ol' Cats. Best bro ever. Haaa...I feel like I haven't been to Grillby's in a long time. (glances at the door, grin widening into a smirk) Heh. I got grape juice at my station, but nothing beats the magic kind~. (teleports to Grillby's)

Grillby's bar was somewhat packed for this time of day(?). The bar had a minimalistic style to it and there are chain motifs incorporated into its interior design. Even the old jukebox in the far right corner of the bar had some on it. Tether greeted the patrons and received them in return as he sauntered his way to the black bar counter. The owner that shared the name of the bar, Grillby, already knew what Tether wants, and had given him his usual meal: a burger with chips and a bottle of grape juice magic style, as Tether would request. He usually would be all for it, but somehow, it felt like it had been years since he had a good meal. After he finished, he went to go check on Catena's fight. When he arrived at the location, it looked like they were still going at it. Frisk looked frustrated and he overheard Catena mentioning that the human kept escaping. Perhaps Tether needed to check on the bars in their shed. Catena didn't really think about how to properly make a caged-off area as much as he did with puzzles. Catena had just finished sending off his normal attack, which looked more like a special attack than anything else with all those bones. Seeing as how he wasn't able to capture the child, Catena decided to spare them. Tether felt like Catena had the situation handled when he noticed something odd.

Catena: OH? ARE YOU HAPPY THAT WE HAVE COME TO A PEACEFUL CONCLUSION TO OUR BATTLE? I, FOR ONE, AM VERY PLEASED WITH THE OUTCOME! FOR THIS, I, THE GREAT CATENA, SHALL GRANT YOU MERCY! (holds his arms out) IF YOU'D LIKE, LET'S CELEBRATE WITH A CELEBRATORY HUG!

That odd feeling Tether had before began to overtake him as the human smiled and approached Catena. Then, in a flash-

Catena (gets a knife shoved into his neck; his Life Chain severed): A-Aaaah...!

Tether froze again. He just saw Frisk stab his brother to dust. Afterwards, Tether decided to chase after Frisk, but he ended up blacking out and back at home again. Tether couldn't remember how many times he ended up watching Catena get killed, but eventually...he managed to hold up the human at the long bridge when Catena left.

Tether: …...Kid....

Frisk: …..

Tether: i don't know what you're doing..or how you're doing it...but..please....stop it...

Frisk: …..

Tether: just....what do you have against him..? He's been nothing but nice to you, and you just... why...?

Frisk: …..

Tether: …..No answer...huh..? just....take me...

Frisk: ….!

Tether: I don't care about what you do to me... Just....stop killing my little brother.... (drops to his hands and knees) ...i'm literally begging you.... (lowers his head) ...just....stop.....please.....

Frisk: …... (kneels by Tether and whispers where his ear would be) ….......No....escape....

Tether: !

Tether would have responded, but he blacked out again. And he woke up again. Catena left again. And he died again. Tether prayed that in this next round of whatever was happening, he would be able to try and actively stop Frisk from killing Catena. He would yank the tall skeleton and drag him kicking and screaming all the way to the evacuation site if he had to. He waited for the black out to occur, so he could put his plan into action if he remembered.

He waited.

Waited.

And waited some more.

But nothing happened.

No blackout, no returning to his house to see Catena leaving. Nothing.

Frisk just kept going into Waterfall without looking back.

Tether never got his brother back.

Catena was gone for good.

CONTINUE?

#chaintalestory

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undertale-rho · 6 years ago

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Underearth: Book 1 - Chapter 10

When Frisk entered the new area, he saw a field of ice with more of those 'X's on them. Frisk looked at the 'X' puzzle for a while before he tried to solve it. He'd gotten 3 of the 'X's to turn into 'O's before taking a wrong turn and sliding off the edge of the plateau. After a second of falling, he landed in some very deep snow, which broke his fall. He then sat up to take a look at where he'd fallen. Next to him was a large snow sculpture of Papyrus with massive muscles and a small pile of snow with the word 'Sans' written onto its front.

Certainly sums up their personality. Frisk thought as he got up out of the snow, brushed himself off, and looked around.

Where he'd landed was a rather small plateau far below where he'd fallen. On one side, there was a path that lead upward. Frisk went up it. The path twisted like a spiral ramp until he arrived in the same area with the 'X' puzzle in the ice field.

When Frisk reached the top, he approached the field of ice and once again tried to think of a way to solve this puzzle. After a few minutes of studying, he finally got it. He then went to attempt the puzzle again. After a few seconds on the ice, he finally managed to turn every 'X' into an 'O' and step on the button. When the button was pushed, there was a slight light blue tint to everything as ice formed into a bridge. Frisk slid along the ice-bridge, reaching the other side. There was another split in the path, one leading straight forward, the other leading to Frisk's right. After a few seconds of careful consideration, he took the right path.

The right path led him down a ramp-like path, at the bottom of which was Sans.

"What's up?" Sans said when he came into view.

"Just looking around."

"Strange, you always seem to just be interested in leaving, but now you're exploring."

Frisk ignored Sans's remark and continued forward. After a second, Frisk looked back to see that Sans was gone.

"Are you lost?" Frisk heard from behind him.

He turned around to see Sans standing right behind him.

"AAH!!!" Frisk screamed.

"Heh, didn't know I was so scary."

He stormed passed Sans onto a narrowing of the cliff's edge. In the rock wall on his right was a cave, which Frisk entered. The inside was dark, darker than outside in the cliff's shadow, at least. Some ways into the cave, Frisk saw a cool blue glow emanating from four groups of mushrooms. The glow revealed the rear of the cave, in the middle of which was a door with the symbol like the one on Toriel's robe. Frisk placed his hand on the door. He felt something when he touched it, though he couldn't explain what it was. After some time, he left, as there was nothing in there, and the door wouldn't budge.

Back out on the cliff, Sans was nowhere to be found, though right in the middle there stood some sort of deer-Monster. The Monster spotted Frisk and let out a roar before charging him. He jumped out of the way of the charging Monster and drew his knife. The Monster turned around and charged once again. Frisk brought his knife to right in front of him so the Monster would run right into it, and so it did. Moments after the Monster had rammed Frisk and by extension, the knife, it turned to dust. He then shook off the knife and stowed it back into his pocket, and ascended the ramp back onto the main path.

Down the earlier path were a whole bunch of snow poffs, little lightly packed piles of snow. Along with the great number of snow poffs, there was a tiny doghouse. The moment Frisk saw this, he was immediately paranoid. He continued through the plateau uneventfully until he reached the end. At a narrowing of the plateau, there was a snow poff that shifted when Frisk approached. He drew his knife. After a few seconds had passed, a small, white, furry head poked out of the snow poff.

Is this one of those dogs that have been trying to kill me? He thought.

The small dog let out a couple of little barks. Frisk then became a bit less paranoid. The little dog then rose from the snow poff to reveal its massive body, being three times the size of Frisk. He then re-readied his knife. The massive canine was clad in plate-mail, like one of the earlier dogs. Frisk stumbled backwards away from the massive creature as it approached. It brought up its spear and thrusted it towards Frisk, who leapt out of the way. The creature was slow due to its size, but Frisk didn't want to be in the way of any of those attacks. He saw an opening in the armor from the angle he was now at, so he charged with knife in hand while the Monster recovered from their attack and jammed it deep into the opening. The Monster let out a yelp of pain before flipping around and slapping Frisk away. He went flying towards the cliff edge, hit the ground some way away from it and coasted to a stop. The Monster pulled the knife out of the opening and threw it off the plateau. The Monster then readied its spear to charge Frisk, who was lying at the precipice. Frisk sat up and saw the dog getting ready to charge. The Monster then started running, spear in front of it, at Frisk. When the Monster got close, Frisk rolled out of the way.

"DIDN'T THINK THIS THROUGH, DID YOU?" Frisk yelled at the canine as it charged full speed off the cliff.

The dog howled as it fell for about eight seconds before everything went silent. Frisk took this moment to sit and breathe. Of all the canine Monsters he'd encountered, that was by far the most difficult. After a minute's rest, he got up and continued along the path that had been blocked by the dog before.

Some way further down the path, Frisk came upon a long rope bridge that connected two plateaus. Frisk noticed that the rope wasn't attached to bridge except at the cliff. As Frisk stepped onto the bridge, he also noticed how the bridge didn't stiffen up when he put his weight on it. About half way across the bridge, he heard Papyrus shouting.

"HUMAN! THIS IS YOUR FINAL AND MOST DANGEROUS CHALLENGE! BEHOLD! THE GAUNTLET OF DEADLY TERROR!"

As he said that, Sans's eyes began glowing a deep blue color. He then brought his arms up. As he did this, some rock on the cliff the skeletons were standing on pulled away, and massive sawblades came out and levitated up to the bridge's height. Massive orange tubes also ascended from the canyon below, spears came out from under the bridge, and a cannon elevated out of the ground between Sans and Papyrus. The orange tubes lit up, and fire came out of them. Papyrus then raised his arm.

"WHEN I SAY THE WORD, IT WILL FULLY ACTIVATE!!! CANNONS WILL FIRE! SPEARS WILL SWING! BLADES WILL SLICE! EACH PART WILL SWING VIOLENTLY EVERY WHICH WAY! ONLY THE TINIEST CHANCE OF VICTORY WILL REMAIN!!! ARE YOU READY!? BECAUSE! I! AM! ABOUT! TO DO IT!"

He held his arm in place.

"Well? What's the holdup?" Sans asked Papyrus.

"HOLDUP!? WHAT HOLDUP!? I'M... I'M ABOUT TO ACTIVATE IT NOW!"

They all looked on as nothing happened.

"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!"

Papyrus gestured a sweeping away motion with his hand and Sans brought his arms down. As he did this, all the tools moved back to where they were before. Frisk and Papyrus let out a sigh of relief. He then looked over at Frisk.

"WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT!? THIS WAS ANOTHER DECISIVE VICTORY FOR PAPYRUS!!! NYEH!!! HEH!!! ... HEH???"

Papyrus then ran off.

After Papyrus had left, Frisk finished crossing the bridge.

"Hey kid." Sans called to Frisk. "I don't know what my brother's go do now. If I were you, I would make sure I understand blue attacks."

"I'll keep that in mind." Frisk responded before walking further down the path towards Snowdin Town.

A Whole New World : I See Cliffs

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#Undertale #Undertale AU #Undertale Rho #UTRStory #Underearth #A Whole New World

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undertale-rho · 4 years ago

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Underearth: Book 5 - Chapter 11

Frisk jostled about as the reactor elevator crashed into the courtyard in front of Asgore's home. Exiting the smoldering structure, Frisk carefully went inside.

Following the pathway, Frisk quickly reached the Judgement Hall, and then Asgore's throne room just beyond. Asgore was tending to his garden, as usual. Looking at the ancient Monster, and remembering the bitter and, perhaps, evil Monster from the tapes, Frisk couldn't comprehend how they could possibly be the same person.

"Greetings." Frisk said.

Asgore looked up from the chrysanthe he tended to. "Howdy!" he said. "How can I—" recognizing the figure in front of him to be Human, Asgore stifled his words.

"Nice day today, huh?" Frisk said. "Birds are singing, flowers are blooming..."

Asgore looked back down at the chrysanthe at his feet.

"Yes... Yes, I suppose it is." he said. "Perfect weather for a game of catch, I reckon."

The two of them remained there in silence for the next few seconds.

"Listen... Asgore..." Frisk said. "We both know what must happen now, but... you don't have to... kill me."

Asgore stood up and slowly walked to his throne.

"I wish that were true, Human. I really do." he said, sitting down.

"Why?" Frisk asked. "Why don't you just... rescind your mandate? End the war right here and now."

"I can't..." Asgore said. "at least, not with a clear conscience."

Frisk cocked his head. "What do you mean?"

Asgore looked up at Frisk, staring him straight in the eyes.

"When I started this war, I was... a different man. A more angry and brutal man. This war has cost me... cost everyone dearly. The lives of six children, and a worried father. The lives of thousands of dissenters." Asgore bowed his head again. "It has cost me my wife, and my closest friends. All but Wing coming to question if we should continue long before I held such doubt."

Asgore stood up and walked to a nearby window.

"I remember it so clearly, that day so long ago... as I told horrid lies to my people, to rile them up in anger against the Humans as I was angry. With my closest friends coming together in support of this nightmarish cause. Of everyone who declared they would shoulder this burden with the others, I am the last to remain. My wife and Wing's two brothers were the first to be disenchanted with the cause. Leaving us, it was then up to me, Wing, Grillby, and Gerson to carry it forward.

"Many Human lives later, Grillby and Gerson fell away, leaving me and Wing. When Wing disappeared, it was only me..." Asgore turned back towards Frisk. "If I were to give up now, then everything that was lost will have been in vein..." he walked back to his throne, stepping behind it as he continued to talk. "The six Humans whose SOULs I have taken... if I were to stop now, then their deaths will have been in vein..." Asgore looked back up at Frisk. "That is why I cannot end this war now with a clear conscience. I am sorry."

"That is why you continue this slaughter?" a higher voice sounded from behind Frisk. Looking back, he saw Toriel standing there.

Asgore looked up at Toriel, a warm glow in his eyes, though the glow quickly died, and he looked back down at the ground. "Yes..."

"You pathetic whelp. If you really wanted to free our kind, you could have passed Cerberus after you got one SOUL. Then you could have taken six SOULs from the Humans, then come back and freed everyone peacefully.

"That's not peacefully." Frisk interrupted. "He'd still have to kill seven Humans total or go grave-robbing."

"It is still a better way than the cowardly one he took in the first place."

"Then why didn't you do it!?" Frisk demanded.

Toriel stepped back, stunned by this response.

"I saw the tape you took of Asgore's speech that fateful day. The room from which Asgore convinced the Monsters to go to war with Humanity all over again. I heard you throw in your support for his actions that day. If Asgore was a coward like you said, why didn't you take the SOUL of the first Human who was killed and cross the barrier yourself when it became clear Asgore wouldn't?"

A nasty grimace began to spread over Toriel's face as her eyes carefully tightened and her teeth began to clench.

"Do not pretend like you know what happened. Why I left this despicable creature."

"Then don't you pretend to be on higher moral ground." Frisk prodded Toriel in the stomach. "You're a coward just like Asgore is. No, not just like Asgore... you're more of a coward. You ran away. You ran away from your responsibility as queen. You ran away from the burden of this cause, which even Asgore stated was 'nightmarish'. You are the pathetic whelp."

Before Toriel—who's eyes had gone dark and cold—could respond, Undyne stormed into the throne room.

"Ngahhhhhh!!!" she screamed. "Asgore! Human!! Nobody fight each-other!!! Everyone's gonna make friends, or else I'll...!!"

Undyne spotted Toriel next to Frisk.

"I'll..." she said again, looking around and spotting Asgore looking shocked from behind his throne.

Toriel took a deep breath. "Hello." she said, her friendly facade having returned. "I am Toriel. Are you the Human's friend? It's nice to meet you."

"Uh, yeah...?" Undyne replied. "Nice to meet you!"

From there, things proceeded roughly as they had in Frisk's second World, with Alphys arriving next, followed by Papyrus and Sans. As those that had gathered talked among one-another, Chara spoke to Frisk.

"You really laid into her..." she said.

"After all that's happened..." Frisk responded. "between those two, Asgore's the only one to have admitted what he did was wrong. Toriel still rides her high horse, thinking she's more mature or whatever."

"What's a horse?"

Frisk chuckled a bit. "I'll tell you later."

Chara looked back at the group. "So, how long do you think before Flowey shows up?"

"I'd give it five... ten seconds, tops."

A few seconds later, Papyrus mentioned that a tiny flower helped him. A few seconds more, vines erupted from the ground, wrapping around Asgore, Undyne, Toriel, Sans, Alphys, and Papyrus; lifting them all into the air. Vines then erupted around Frisk, grabbing him around his ankles, wrists, and neck, pulling him up into the air.

A demonic laughter filled the throne room.

"You IDIOTS." Flowey shouted, emerging from the center of the room. "While you guys were having your little pow-wow... I took the Human SOULs!"

Frisk focused magic around himself, igniting it all and burning the vines that held him away. Falling to the ground, Frisk landed on the tile, a circle of flame burning around him.

"Hey Flowey, why don't we just cut to the part where you do that white orb thing and absorb all the SOULs in the Underground."

"Oh, we've done this before too, have we? Interesting. By the fact that you're here again, you either lost the first time around, or want to see what else I'll do or say. Alright then, this game you're playing sounds fun, so I'll play too." Flowey's face melted away, revealing a wide, toothy, demonic grin. "First to the finish!!!"

A white orb of energy appeared above the demonic flower. Within seconds, the ball of energy exploded outwards, engulfing the entire room, palace, Elysium, and, eventually, the entire Underground.

Frisk summoned a shield, blocking all the incoming light projectiles. The fight with the Monster Prince, Asriel Dreemurr, had been going on for a few minutes now. Chara watched from nearby, staying far from the fight as Frisk worked to get Asriel to expend more of his power.

Eventually, Asriel summoned an enormous goat skull, which laughed before sucking in everything around it, besides Frisk, who kept away from the skull via gravity magic.

After a minute, the skull stopped sucking, and exploded in a sudden burst of energy.

"... even after that attack, you're still standing in my way...?" Asriel asked.

Frisk landed on the ground without even a single scratch.

"Wow... you really are something special. But don't get cocky. Up until now, I've only been using a fraction of my real power! Let's see what good your DETERMINATION is against this!!"

Asriel vanished complete.

"Oh, finally." Frisk said. "Was starting to get bored."

In an instant, a compressive force grabbed hold of Frisk, straining against every inch of his body. Try as he might, Frisk couldn't move an inch.

"Urah ha ha ha... Behold my true power!" Asriel boomed as he appeared, featuring a new form.

Frisk struggled against the overwhelming power Asriel now flaunted.

Asriel brought his arms up, firing multiple light-missiles from them. The missiles arced away before all coming down right on top of Frisk, who was powerless against their radiant light.

"I can feel it..." Asriel said. "Every time you die, your grip on this world slips away. Every time you die, your friends forget you a little more. Your life will end here, in a world where no one remembers you..."

Asriel fired more missiles at Frisk, which burned away at him just as the last ones did.

"Still, you're hanging on...? That's fine. In a few moments, you'll forget everything, too. That attitude will serve you well in your next life!"

"Chara!" Frisk called. "Think you could give me a hand?"

"What? Why are you..." Asriel started to say.

Chara floated down from here place of observation, touching Asriel's great head. Asriel closed his eyes in pain, clutching his head.

"Erh... what is this?" Asriel asked, opening his eyes again.

"Hey Azzy..." Chara said as Asriel's eyes fell upon her.

"Ch... Chara..." he said. "Wh... what did you do...? What's this feeling...? What's happening to me?"

Chara flew backwards, landing next to Frisk. Asriel regained his fire.

"No! NO! I don't need ANYONE!"

Frisk felt the restraining force on his body lift. With it broken, both Frisk and Chara approached Asriel.

"STOP IT!" he shouted. "Get away from me! Do you hear me!? I'll tear you apart!"

Chara flew back up to Asriel, placing a hand on his head again.

"... Chara... Do you know why I'm doing this...? Why I keep fighting to keep you around...? I'm doing this... because you're special, Chara."

"It's okay, Azzy. It's okay..."

The two remained this way for a while, with Chara consoling Asriel softly. Eventually, Asriel slowly shrank down to a figure roughly the height of Frisk.

Frisk let the two be, having their moment after so many years of limbo. Eventually, Asriel stepped back and floated into the air, massive amounts of energy emanating from him, all collecting into a single ball of energy just above. Soon enough, the ball of energy exploded outward, engulfing everything in a blinding light. Not long after, the light faded, and Asriel fell back down to the ground. Asriel then looked towards Frisk, approaching him.

"I'm sorry for all the trouble I caused you." he said.

"Eh, it was nothing I haven't encountered before.

Asriel chuckled a bit. "Say, before I go, what's your name?"

"It's Frisk."

"Frisk, huh. That's... a nice name." Asriel stepped back, preparing to go away. "Frisk..." he said. "You're... You're going to do a great job, okay? No matter what you do. Everyone will be there for you, okay? Well... my time's running out. Goodbye."

Asriel began walking away but stopped after taking a few steps.

"By the way... Frisk" he said, turning back for a second. "... take care of mom and dad for me, okay?" he looked over at Chara. "... and Chara too."

Frisk nodded. With that, Asriel finished walking away, fading away in specks of light.

Frisk opened his eyes. Toriel, Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, Alphys, and Asgore all surrounded him.

"Oh! You are awake! Thank goodness!" Toriel said.

"W-we were so worried...!" Alphys said. "It felt like you were out forever!"

"Yeah! Any longer and I would have freaked out!" Undyne said. "Tell us the next time you decide to take a nap, okay!?"

"Yeah. You made Papyrus cry like a baby." Sans said.

"WHAT!! I DIDN'T CRY!!! I DON'T CRY!!" Papyrus protested. "I JUST... CAUGHT SOMETHING IN MY EYE."

"What did you catch?"

"TEARS!!!" Papyrus said, draining more water from his sockets.

Frisk stood up. "Are you all alright?"

"Us? Um, yeah." Undyne said. "It's you we're all worried about."

"I see..." Frisk looked over at Asgore. "Where's the SOULs?" he asked.

"Err... gone. I... do not know why. On the bright side, Cerberus is gone. So they are no longer needed anyway."

"That's good to hear. So, you'll all be going to the surface soon enough?"

"Yeah, we were just waiting for you to wake up." Undyne said.

"Alright."

Chara flew into view.

"Frisk," she said, "before we go to the surface, can we... go back to the Citadel for a bit?"

Frisk looked back at the Monsters. "You guys go on ahead, I've got something I still need to do down here."

"We will wait here for you, Frisk." Toriel said. The other Monsters agreed.

Frisk chuckled a bit. "Alright. I'll be sure to be quick, then."

Frisk exited the throne room, out to the Judgement Hall. "So why do you want to go back to the Citadel?" he asked.

"I... I want to see something for myself. It shouldn't take long."

"I see..."

Frisk continued walking back, heading first down the elevator to Helios Station, then out and down to the Acheron, where he rode the boat to Toriel's home. From there, Chara led him backward until they'd exited the Citadel entirely, to the place where Frisk first met Flowey. Going through the archway at the end of the room, Frisk finally reached the alcove that led to the chamber he originally fell into. Seeing what was in the room, Frisk stopped walking for a second.

"Howdy, Frisk." Asriel said upon seeing him. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing. Didn't you... didn't you disappear?"

Asriel looked down at the bed of chrysanthe Frisk had originally woken upon.

"No. Not yet anyway. My magic isn't enough to let this body persist for the long term. I'll... need to turn back into a flower before too long. But I still have enough to... anyway, why'd you come back?"

"I... wanted to look back through the Underground. Review my journey, I guess."

"And so you came back to where you fell."

"Asriel, since I'm here, why don't you come back with me. Say hello to your mom and dad."

"No."

"Why not? It would only be—"

"I can’t come back. I just can't, okay?" Asriel interrupted. "I don't want to break their hearts all over again. It's better if they never see me."

Better for who?

Frisk didn't leave. Standing in silence for a few minutes, Asriel finally turned back to face him.

"... why are you still here? Are you trying to keep me company? Frisk..." Asriel looked back down at the patch of flowers. After another shorter period of silence, Asriel looked back at him. "Hey. Let me ask you a question. Frisk... why did you come here? Everyone knows the legend, right...?"

"What legend?" Frisk asked.

"'Travelers who climb Mount Ebott are said to disappear.'"

"I never really knew of such a legend." he answered. "Well, actually, I did, but only vaguely. Read in passing. Either way, I didn't come here voluntarily."

"I see..." Asriel looked back at the chrysanthe. "I know why Chara climbed the mountain. It wasn't for a very happy reason." Asriel looked back at Frisk. "Frisk. I'll be honest with you. Chara hated Humanity."

Really? Never would have guess.

"Why they did, they never talked about it. But they felt very strongly about that. Frisk... you really are different from Chara."

"No I'm not." Frisk blurted out.

Asriel looked shocked. Chara, who'd been passively listening, stifling her distress, looked shocked at Frisk too.

"What do you mean?" Asriel asked.

"Asriel... I've been through this Underground... quite a few times. I've learned a lot about this world. I don't know why Chara hated Humanity as she did, but... whatever her reason was, it drove her to give up everything to see them destroyed. I did the same thing. I gave up everything just to strike at Humanity. When I became lucid to what I'd done to achieve that... I knew I had to reverse it somehow. I'm just lucky that... that everything worked out in the end."

"Frisk..." Asriel said, looking down at the ground.

"There is one thing that's still in obscurity, though, that I'd like to know." Frisk said.

Asriel looked back up at him. "What?"

"What happened when you and Chara crossed the Barrier? Asgore made up his own version, and what happened is... lost."

Asriel closed his eyes. "We... we walked back to Ochyro... the city she came from." Asriel then laughed a bit. "Turns out that when you absorb a SOUL, control of your body is split between you and the person you absorbed."

"Really?"

"Yeah. She was the one that picked up her own empty body. And then when we reached Ochyro... she wanted to... to use our full power. I resisted. Because of me, we... well, that's why I ended up a flower." Asriel opened his eyes again. "Frisk... this whole time, I've blamed myself for that decision. That's why I adopted that horrible view of the world. 'Kill or be killed.'"

"No..." Chara mumbled. "No, that's not..."

"But now..." Asriel continued, unaware of Chara's presence, "Frisk, I don't regret that decision anymore. I did the right thing. If I killed those Humans, we would have had to wage war against all of Humanity."

Which Asgore did anyway...

"And in the end, everyone went free, right? I still feel kind of sad knowing how long it took, so maybe it wasn't a perfect decision. But you can't regret hard choices your whole life, right? Well, not that I have much of a life left. But that's beside the point." Asriel turned around to face the flowers. "Frisk, thank you for listening to me. You should really go be with your friends now, okay?"

Frisk sighed. "Okay... I hope I see you around, Asriel."

Frisk walked back through the alcove and out to the front courtyard of the Royal Watchtower.

"So why did you want to come back here? Did you know Asriel would be here?" Frisk asked.

"No. I just... wanted to see it for myself."

"See what?"

"My... my dead body."

"I see..."

Continuing back through the Underground, Frisk made it back to the throne room in no time. Announcing his arrival, Frisk and the Monsters made their way back to the surface.

Emergence : Siblings

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undertale-rho · 5 years ago

Text

Underearth: Book 3 - Chapter 3

The Snowdin Province was the coldest region in the Underground. Fresh snow fell from magic-based clouds every few days, coating everything in a pure sheet of white. Yet, despite the bitter cold environment, Frisk waded through the virgin snow like he was walking on a city sidewalk in summer; the towering bamboo-like trees doing nothing to dissuade him with their intimidating appearance.

After a bit of walking, Frisk eventually made it to a chasm in the middle of the path, bridged by a strait bridge that hosted a gate with bars too far apart to stop anyone.

As Frisk got close to the bridge, a second set of snow-crunching footsteps started to be heard approaching him from behind. As soon as Frisk heard this sound, he stopped walking, waiting for whoever was approaching to reach him.

Seeing as this was Frisk's third time preforming these exact motions in this exact spot, he knew exactly who was approaching.

The footsteps suddenly stopped.

"Human." came a mysterious voice originating directly behind him. "Don't you know how to greet a new pal? Turn around and shake my hand."

Slowly, Frisk turned around to face the figure now standing behind him. As soon as he could, Frisk grasped the outstretched hand. A farting sound followed immediately. The figure, who wore a ridiculously goofy grin for a skeleton, then spoke again.

"Heheh, the old whoopee cushion in the hand trick. It's ALWAYS funny."

Frisk simply stared at the figure. Though this trick had made him laugh before, Frisk was now unsure whether that laugh was forced, or if he had actually found it funny. Regardless of what was felt before, Frisk simple released the skeleton's hand, and stared straight into one of the small glowing white orbs that decorated the inside of the skeleton's eye sockets.

"That's, uh. Your cue to laugh." the skeleton said, looking off to the side. "Or, uh, to emote at all...?" he then said in a cheeky sort of way.

Frisk continued to silently stare.

"Gee, lady, you really know how to pick 'em, huh...?" the skeleton mumbled. He then looked back up at Frisk. "OK, that's fine. Everyone's got their own sense of humor. I'm Sans. Sans the skeleton. I'm actually supposed to be on watch for Humans right now. But... Y'know... I don't really care about capturing anybody. Now my brother, Papyrus... He's a Human-hunting FANATIC." As Sans spoke, there was a shrill, unintelligible noise sourced further into the forest. "Hey, actually, I think that's him over there. I have an idea. Go through this gate thingy." Sans pointed to the large wooden structure situated over the bridge. "My bro made the bars to wide to stop anyone."

As Frisk looked up at the gate, Sans started pushing him along, over the bridge, and into a clearing.

"Quick," Sans said. "behind that conveniently-sized lamp."

Frisk simply stood there.

I was only told to not attack Sans. Papyrus, though? He's as good as dead. he thought.

"Uh, ok, I guess you don't have to." Sans said.

A few seconds later, Papyrus came tromping up to where both Sans and Frisk were standing. First thing he noticed was Frisk standing there, looking at him. Just as he was about to speak to him, his eyes caught sight of Sans standing right behind Frisk.

"SANS!!!" he screeched. "HAVE YOU FOUND A HUMAN YET!??!"

"Yeah." Sans replied.

Papyrus's demeanor changed almost instantly. "REALLY!?!?" he said. "WOWIE!!! GUESS THAT'S SETTLED!!"

Papyrus then ran off, seeming to completely forget about Frisk.

"That worked out, huh?" Sans said.

With Papyrus gone, Frisk started after him. Just as he was about to leave the clearing, Sans began speaking to him again.

"Well, I'll be straight-forward with you." he started. "My brother'd really like to see a Human... So, y'know, it'd really help me out if you kept pretending to be one."

Frisk looked back to face Sans, maybe slip up a little on the not attacking him, but by the time he'd looked back, Sans was gone.

As Frisk looked back, he started to get a feeling in his chest. Though he couldn't quite understand how, Frisk knew that there were 24 SOULs, besides his own, within the forest.

This must be LOV... he thought. Twenty-four. Besides Sans and Papyrus, that makes twenty-two.

With this in mind, Frisk drew the knife and began making his way deeper into the forest.

"SO SANS!" Frisk overheard a gruff voice say up ahead. "WHEN'S THE HUMAN SHOWING UP??? I WANT TO LOOK MY SUNDAY BEST... OR AT LEAST MY TUESDAY PRETTY-GOOD."

"Don't you only have one outfit?" Sans replied.

"YEAH, BUT I COULD STYLE MY HAIR!"

"Oh. Right. Good idea." Sans then looked over at Frisk. "Say, why don't you look over there?"

Papyrus then looked over at Frisk, then back at Sans. As he did this, Sans, too, looked back at Papyrus. The two then looked between each-other and Frisk multiple times before they both faced away.

"SANS!!!" Papyrus exclaimed before beginning to lose his balance. "I'M DIZZY. WHAT AM I LOOKING AT?"

Sans brought his hand up and presented the scene before them.

"Behold." he said.

They both beheld.

"OH MY!!!" Papyrus shouted. He then looked back at Sans. "WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME TO LOOK AT A ROCK."

Sans then pointed right at Frisk. "Hey, what's that in front of the rock?"

Papyrus looked back, looking straight at Frisk.

"I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THAT IS."

"Well. It's not a rock."

"NOT A ROCK...? OH NO!!! BY PROCESS OF ELIMINATION!!! THAT MEANS IT'S A HUMAN!!!"

Congratulations, you've won a gold star.

"AHEM!! HUMAN!!" Papyrus said. "PREPARE YOURSELF!! FOR HIGH JINKS! FOR LOW JINKS! DANGERS! PUZZLES! CAPERS! JAPERS! BEING CAPTURED!! AND OTHER SORTS OF FUN ACTIVITIES. REFRESHMENTS WILL BE PROVIDED... IF YOU DARE! NYEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH HEH!!!" he laughed as he ran off.

Sans looked back at Frisk. "And you don't even bat an eye, huh?" he, too, then walked off.

Over the next few minutes of wandering, Frisk had managed to find a few of the ambient Monsters of the Snowdin Forest. Specifically, a Monster that looked like some strange fusion of a snowflake and a wyvern. This Monster was accompanied by another that looked strikingly similar to the first, and a third Monster that looked like a snowball wearing an icicle.

As Frisk approached the group of Monsters, the three stood back defensively, one of them summoning a sheet of ice between them and Frisk. Frisk, however, ignored the ice sheet, and continued towards them.

"'Freeze' right there!" one of the wyverns growled.

Frisk didn't stop. Instead, he simply brought the dagger up and plunged it into the sheet of ice that stood between him and the Monsters on the other side. Upon being pierced, the sheet began forming cracks all along its surface, originating from the point the dagger penetrated. Not long after, the sheet shattered, turning to dust.

Upon seeing their ice sheet turn to dust, the Monsters attempted to flee. The two wyverns spread their small wings and attempted to take flight, while the icicle-wearing snowball Monster simply attempted to run. Having exceedingly short legs, however, it hadn't made it very far when Frisk made a grab for it.

Frisk, once in range of the snowball Monster, quickly extended his hand to grab it, making for the largest object on the Monsters body, being the giant icicle it wore. As soon as he grabbed it, though, he found that it was not a part of the Monster's body like he had first thought.

Feeling its hat being removed, the snowball Monster, seemingly losing the fear initially gained from Frisk's aggressive approach, stopped running and grabbed its hat to keep it on. When Frisk had pulled the icicle to him, the Monster itself was still attached. He then took this moment to bring around his other hand (which was still holding the dagger) and stab the Monster, turning it to dust.

Upon seeing this murderous display, the two wyverns also forgot their own fear. They both then began summoning projectiles of their own and launching them at Frisk, who dodged off to the side, into a nearby thicket. The Monsters pelted the area where Frisk had fled with their projectiles for a bit longer before evidently deciding that they'd almost certainly hit him a few times by landing back onto the ground. Once back on the ground, they went to where the snowball Monster had turned to dust.

Frisk, who had summoned a small shield to repel the projectiles, then sprang from his hiding place yelling, sprinting at the pair of Monsters. The Monsters, surprised by the sudden reappearance of the mysterious dust-covered creature simply stared at him, stunned. Frisk then took this opportunity to bring his knife sailing through the throat of the first, and across the head of the second. Both soon after turned to dust. Once all three Monsters were slain, Frisk could feel the LOV within him grow, and directing him to continue further in.

After another minute of walking, Frisk came across a sentry station that smelled of smoke. As he approached it, a large dog-like Monster sprung from the station, a knife in each hand.

"Did something move?" Doggo said. "Was it my imagination?"

Frisk stopped moving.

The Monster looked around some more, then growled. "I can only see moving things." he said.

His next sweep brought his snout near Frisk, allowing him to get a good whiff of the dust encrusting the edges of Frisk's clothing.

"H... hey!" he then said. "I can't stop shivering all of a sudden. Who... who's there!?"

As soon as Doggo stopped talking, Frisk shot the knife straight at the Monster's throat, sinking it deep in. He then took his free hand and grasped the Monster's head, using it to help him thrust the dagger down along the Monster's front. Once finished, Frisk pulled the knife out, and let the Monster collapse to the ground and turn to dust soon after. Frisk then continued walking, searching for his next target.

As Frisk continued through Snowdin Heights, shambling around, hunting down every last Monster, he also continuously ran into Sans and Papyrus. Each and every time, Frisk would simply walk through the puzzle before Papyrus had a chance to activate it. Papyrus would get deeply offended by this, and Sans would chastise him. Whenever Frisk reached a puzzle that was not directly supervised by either Sans or Papyrus, it had already been solved. Eventually, Frisk made it to the Gauntlet of Deadly Terror, where Sans and Papyrus stood waiting.

"HUMAN!" Papyrus shouted when Frisk had made it about half-way across a long rope bridge. "THIS IS YOUR FINAL AND MOST DANGEROUS CHALLENGE! BEHOLD! THE GAUNTLET OF DEADLY TERROR!"

As he said this, Sans's eyes began glowing a deep blue color. He then brought his arms up. All at once, some rock on the cliff the two skeletons were standing on pulled away, and massive sawblades emerged and levitated up until they were level with the bridge; massive orange tubes ascended from the canyon below, spears emerged from under the bridge, and a cannon elevated out of the ground between the two brothers. The orange tubes then lit up, fire spewing from their orifice. Papyrus then raised one of his arms.

He held his arm in place.

"Well?" Sans asked. "What's the holdup?"

"HOLDUP!? WHAT HOLDUP!? I'M... I'M ABOUT TO ACTIVATE IT NOW!"

Papyrus's arm still hung high in the air.

"That, uh, doesn't look very activated."

"WELL!!! THEY'RE PROBABLY GOING TO WALK THROUGH IT, AND IT WON'T BE ANY FUN AT ALL." Papyrus responded, disappointment infesting his voice.

"Hmmm... So this Human thing was a bust, huh?" Sans then asked.

"WELL. I MEAN. I'M EXCITED TO CAPTURE THEM. SO I'LL BECOME A FAMOUS ROYAL GUARDSMAN!!! BUT ALL THE TIME I PUT INTO THESE PUZZLES... IT'S KIND OF LIKE THROWING A BIRTHDAY PARTY..."

"Without traps and fire?"

"EXACTLY!! IT'S POINTLESS!!! MAYBE YOU WERE RIGHT TO BE LAZY ABOUT PUZZLES."

"Me? Right about something? Really?"

Papyrus shot a look at Sans.

"YEAH!! WHAT AM I SAYING! YOU'RE STILL COMPLETELY WRONG! I JUST HAVE THE WRONG AUDIENCE! THINK ABOUT HOW MUCH FUN UNDYNE WOULD HAVE HERE! FLAMES, VIOLENCE. IT'S RIGHT UP HER ALLEY! SO I WON'T WASTE THIS PUZZLE ON YOU, HUMAN. I JUST HAVE TO APPRECIATE THE FRIEND I ALREADY HAVE!!! A VALUABLE LIFE LESSON!!! NYEH HEH HEH!!!"

Papyrus then ran off.

After Papyrus was gone, Sans brought his arms down. As he did this, all the different parts of the Gauntlet moved back to where they were before. He then looked over at Frisk.

"Hmmm... Guess we didn't need your help to have a good time after all."

Frisk finished crossing the bridge. Once he'd reached the cliff on the other side, Sans began speaking again.

"Say, I've been thinking. 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 stopped talking for a moment. Frisk looked at Sans, whose eyes were closed. A few seconds later, Sans opened his eyes again, revealing the lack of the eye-lights that shone within, giving him an uncanny look. Upon re-opening his eyes, Sans spoke one last thing.

"You're gonna have a bad time."

As soon as he finished saying this, a dark green aura erupted around Sans, followed by him vanishing completely.

As this happened, Frisk let out a frightened yelp, and fell backwards into the snow, his breathing erratic.

After a few seconds, his breathing slowed down to a steady even pace, and he stood up, brushing the snow that stuck to him off. Once fully calm again, Frisk focused in on the warm, heavy feeling in his chest. The feeling pulled him forward, leading him into Snowdin Town. Heeding this, Frisk continued into the cheery town of Snowdin.

Vengeance : Absentia

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