After Sans left into the snowy forest, Frisk decided his best bet to make it to Snowden was to go in the opposite direction.
Fortunately for him, he wasn't too far away, only a few minutes at a brisk walk. Frisk was nervous walking into the house; the human was still unsure what Sans was planning. The fear turned out to be unjustified when he opened the door and found Papyrus feeding his pet rock some spaghetti.
"Hello, Papyrus; Sans told me to let you know he already fed the rock," Frisk commented as he sat on the couch. The fear and adrenaline almost made it feel like he had gotten into a fight.
The skeleton froze and stopped dumping spaghetti on his rock. "What! That NUMBSKULL!" He exclaimed. "He told me the pet rock looked like it was hungry. Does he want it to get big-boned?"
Frisk chuckled under his breath and then tried to console the younger brother. Telling him how he would just need to take it out for more walks.
"And hey, Papyrus, when you return from your walk, do you want to train together?" He casually mentioned.
Papyrus agreed and ran to get a leash; Frisk left him to his business and decided to chill on the couch for now. He didn't really feel like walking an inanimate object, though this was the underground, so it was certainly possible the rock could walk.
Somewhat curious now, he watched as the leash was put on and Papyrus carried the rock outside. Just as the skeleton put the rock down, a gust of wind blew past, kicking up the surrounding snow. By the time it calmed down, Papyrus and the rock were gone.
"Really?" Frisk questioned the universe in a deadpan voice. "You can't even let me have that?" Frustrated, the human sat back down on the couch and whipped out the phone Toriel gave him. Unfortunately, the thing was ancient and didn't have any games, so he put it down.
Briefly, Frisk considered trying to get into Sans' room; he hadn't done that in the game. But considering he was trying to get on the skeleton's good side, that probably wouldn't be a good idea. Actually, he probably shouldn't be thinking of breaking into people's rooms or houses. That was kinda creepy.
So, out of options, Frisk decided to do the responsible thing… Play with fire.
→[2 Hours Later]
Frisk sat meditating in the center of a torn-up clearing. His training with Papyrus had been ever more intense this time, and he needed to regain his Aura. Meditating seemed to help with that.
A pulse of dark blue energy engulfed him and turned his soul blue. It was much easier to burn off than last time, a combination of there being less magic behind it and Frisk getting better at the technique. It was three types of training at once.
Getting better at regenerating Aura, burning off soul effects, and multitasking.
"Two seconds that time, Paps," Frisk called out to his training partner. Papyrus was also training off to the side of the clearing. He, too, was training multiple things at once. Even if one of them was dancing.
Papyrus insisted that if he was releasing multiple bursts of his blue magic, he needed to develop a pattern for the attack. Frisk thought to tie the attack in with his spear forms, but the skeleton was rather insistent on dancing. The human thought the idea was rather against the point of the entire exercise but couldn't seem to get through to the monster.
Cultural differences, he supposed.
So now Papyrus was timing the pulses of magic with the steps in his dance, and Frisk was here trying to fight off the effects. Though the whole thing seemed like a rather pointless endeavor.
… Whoa, where did that come from?
Another pulse washed over Frisk, and he brought his PERSEVERANCE to bear for the. Huh, he didn't actually know how many times he had used it. Anyway, he brought it out to burn away the gravity effect but found the flame more sluggish than usual.
"Six seconds this time." He called out, frustrated with himself.
PERSEVERANCE magic was complicated, and he didn't really have anyone to teach him about it specifically. Frisk knew that it built up in a fight over time when he persevered against an enemy. Eventually, that power would get too much for him to reasonably control, and it would start to burn him. But other than that, he didn't have an exact idea of how the storage of magic actually worked.
He asked Papyrus, but rather expectedly, the dancing skeleton didn't know the answer. So, deciding he was done for the day, Frisk called off the training.
Luckily, Papyrus decided to finish up, too, and they both returned to Snowden. The rest of the day was spent exploring the little town. They got dinner at Grillby's, checked out the shop where Frisk repurchased the headband, and even stopped at the LIBRARBY to pick up some books.
Frisk usually liked to read, and the history of the monsters was fascinating, but most of the books were incredibly short and very sparse in details.
The human also made sure to educate Papyrus on what dating actually was before it could devolve into any misunderstanding like last time. He also asked where Sans was because he hadn't seen the lazy bones since their heated conversation.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
Papyrus only said that Sans had told him to stick around town and that he wouldn't be available for a while. That was certainly ominous.
They finished their day when Frisk offered to get a room at the local Inn, but Papyrus insisted they stay at his house.
However, Frisk did have to convince the skeleton to let him sleep on the couch instead of his race car bed.
→ [Next Day]
{ Sans stared down at him, eyes glowing.
"Sorry."
His soul was disintegrated.
Papyrus stared down at him, eyes burning with hate.
"That's him." A yellow flower pointed a vine at Frisk.
He felt the bone spear stab through his chest.
Toriel stared down at-}
*Crack*
A sound woke Frisk from his nightmare, and he bolted off the couch. Loud rumbling noises were coming from outside, and when he heard the distinctive sound of a Gaster Blaster charging, he had some idea about what might be going on.
"Sans!" He burst out the front door and ran to the side of the house. "Nononono." He muttered and stopped in his tracks when he saw it.
The place was littered with vines, and off to one side stood Sans, his Gaster Blaster falling apart behind him. At the sound of Frisk's cry, the skeleton turned toward the human and smiled.
"Looks like you were right, kid." Frisk's eyes widened as they witnessed something they thought was impossible: Sans was injured. His shorts were torn, showing where the thorn had gouged into his bony leg. "Damn, I'm dead tired." The skeleton smirked as he was enveloped in Flowey's vines.
Frisk reached out to the dying skeleton and tried to say something, only to stop as he heard a familiar voice behind him.
"Don't worry too much, kid; I'm not exactly out of the fight." Something fell on Frisk's shoulder; it was Sans's hand, who had teleported behind him. However, that last use of his power seemed to drain him more. "Though I don't think I was joking about being dead tired." He chuckled at his last pun and collapsed into dust.
Frisk stood their shell shocked, unable to react as Flowey popped up from the ground a few feet away.
"HAHA, yes! Fighting that annoying pile of bones always has annoying luck-based mechanics." The demonic flower complained as he watched the dust float to the ground with pride. "But it's not too difficult if you know where he will likely teleport after being ambushed."
Frisk looked at the same pile of dust and despaired; it was the same.
{"How about no," Flowey said with a grin on his face.
*Slam*
Frisk froze in his advance as a thorned vine drove itself through Toriel's chest.
She let out a silent gasp of pain before falling apart into dust.}
He had told someone about his predicament, and they died right after. Even Sans, the most powerful monster in the underground, didn't stand a chance when Flowey had probably fought and killed him plenty of times.
"Didn't I tell you I'm the god of this world?" Flowey said, sounding smugly satisfied. "This is what happens when you try to involve others. Apparently, I needed to remind you about that."
"FLOWEY!!" Frisk screamed in despair and anger; his left eye crackled with barely held-back JUSTICE.
"No thanks."
******************************************************************************************************
[Save Loaded x32]
******************************************************************************************************
JUSTICE flowed through Frisk's Aura as he jumped up once again in the patch of yellow flowers. Wasting no time, he dashed into the second chamber, where he redoubled his vow to kill that wretched flower.
Skidding to a halt, he gathered his yellow lightning in his hand and prepared to fire.
…
The room was empty.
Frisk stood there with disbelief in his eyes when he realized Flowey wouldn't be coming to face him. I-it was a loop. Whenever he made progress, it would just be erased in an instant. Whenever he told people about his circumstances, they died.
"HAH!" He slammed his fist into the group in frustration. "What do you want from me?!" Why torture him like this? Was it truly all for amusement?
He waited for an answer, but nobody came.
That was right. Frisk was alone. The only person down here who remembered him was Flowey. The being that continued to turn back the clock and cause misery for its own amusement.
His right eye burned a dull purple.
So what if he was alone? Frisk had been alone before and persevered. He would learn how to use his magic, get through the underground, and free the monsters while he was at it just to spite that bastard flower.
He was fine.
—
[Toriel's House]
—
He was fine.
—
[Meeting Sans]
—
He was fine.
—
[Snowden]
—
He was fine.
Frisk went through the motions of his journey. There was a terrifying dissonance in the feeling of something losing its meaning from just a few days ago. The knowledge that all this could be taken away instantly made it difficult to enjoy Toriel's pie and Papyrus's puzzles.
Though he was getting to be a bit of a better actor. He needed to if he was going to fool Sans and stop Flowey from just resetting after the skeleton found out.
He had managed to get through the fight with Papyrus and was standing at the edge of Snowden. Sneaking away from the skeleton brothers was relatively easy. Papyrus was walking his pet rock, and Sans had disappeared after the group got to town. Now, he just needed to set off on the road to Waterfall.
He would probably need to run away from Undyne, but he was relatively confident in his speed, which helped. He couldn't give Flowey the opportunity to hurt him even more, so he would probably not try to befriend the captain of the royal guard. Even if he really did want to ask her for advice on spear forms.
Maybe if he did things quickly, he could get into the lab and find the DT Extractor-
A bony hand fell down on his shoulder. "Hey, kid."
Frisk flinched hard and dove forward instinctively. Turning around, he saw Sans standing there, his hand glowing light blue, looking at him with a complicated expression on his face. The human scanned the area for charging Gaster Blasters, hoping not to be hit by surprise.
"I think you're getting ahead of yourself. I distinctly remember you promising my brother a training session before you left. Why don't I bring you there now? I've picked out the perfect place." He reached out his hand.
But… he hadn't. During this reset, Frisk never promised Papyrus he would train. He might have insinuated something similar, but…
"Ah, sure, I guess it slipped my mind." He reached out and took San's hand, only for it to pull away from his arm. It was a fake skeleton hand.
"Heh," Sans chuckled. "Looks like I can still getcha." He smirked and pulled Frisk away from Snowden.
In the next instant, they were in a darker room, and it took Frisk's eyes a couple seconds to adjust to the light level. When they finally did, he realized he was in some sort of workshop. Machines stood against the walls, and one counter was filled to the brim with blueprints that he couldn't begin to understand.
"Wha-" Frisk was speechless.
"We need to get this done quickly before he realizes where we are," Sans said with uncharacteristic urgency in his voice. "Let's start with that I believe you and remember our little conversation about a certain time-controlling flower."