The squirt got sick. Pretty bad fever.

When Undyne heard the news from Toriel, she wanted to suplex the desk. ‘Wanted’ was the key word. She didn’t do it. More so when Toriel had piles of homework on said desk. She knew better than others that the ex-Queen shouldn’t be trifled with.

Toriel further explained what happened the night before. According to her, Frisk had a bad nightmare. Tried to meet Sans, but then they suffered a panic attack in the cold. It further aggravated their condition.

By the time Sans brought the kid home, they had a high fever.

Frisk phoned her aunt. Said that they needed a human representative to clear any possible misunderstandings.

Cenna’s duty was to take Frisk to a trusted hospital. She knew a place that would house the Ambassador and their monster escorts without prejudice.

Toriel already had more work than she could chew, and thus was unable to afford another leave. The next candidate… was the designated ‘Dad’ by marriage bonds: Asgore.

So the dad and the blue skelly accompanied Ebott’s ‘Golden Quiche’ out of town for medical treatment.

“How’s the squirt doing?!” Undyne asked. Her nails almost clawed into the woodwork.

“Fine.” The goat-lady answered with a sigh. “They’re given some medicine and placed under observation. Doctors suspected that the fever was from an ear infection.”

“Seriously? But, Frisk didn’t act sick at all.” Kids tend to show more obvious symptoms when they fall ill.

Toriel replied, “Maybe we thought they were just tired.”

Good point. Events happened almost non-stop for the past two or three weeks. It seemed that all the wear and stress had finally collapsed on the poor kid’s shoulders.

“When are we visiting them?” asked the fish teacher.

“Sans will pick me up later tonight. Do you want to come along?” The child’s mother had a weary smile.

With his shortcuts? Undyne thought he’s milking that aspect of his power to the point of exploitation.

“Nah. Not tonight,” answered Undyne. “I gotta help Al take care of Paps. He’s still at the phase where he activates his ‘helium-balloon mode’ at random. We can’t let him go outdoors until we’re certain he’s not going float off into the open sky.”

Toriel couldn’t help but to chuckle. “What about his… visions?”

“Vision problems, pwned!” Undyne proudly announced. She picked up a lingo or two from the Internet. “About time too. Dang. At first it was funny, but the whole ‘talking at the wrong direction’ thing got super annoying by day three.”

“I’m glad to hear Papyrus is recovering well.” Said Toriel. “He should be fine by Sunday, right?”

“Yeah. We hope so. Mettaton has to go back to work on Sunday night. Soooooo…”

Undyne imagined the unfortunate outcome of Papyrus trying to break out of the lab - by jumping through the window - and then floating upside-down toward the sky.

Telling him about Frisk’s hospitalization might trigger the same effect. It’s a bit cruel to withhold such information, especially when that skeleton loved the kid to bits.

Still… Papyrus is Papyrus. He will throw all caution into the wind in a heartbeat.

The fish lady uttered an uncomfortable chuckle. “Yeah. I really, REALLY hope we’re on schedule.”

Homeroom was almost over. The teachers had to get ready to attend their respective classes.

“Oops, it’s almost time. See ya later, Toriel.”

The other teacher nodded in an absent-minded manner.

Just when Undyne turned around…

“Were you the Head of the Royal Guard when the quake happened?”

Toriel’s question stopped her dead in her tracks. If this was anime, this would be the time when the room's aura turned dark, heavy and oppressive.

Undyne’s gut feeling pointed towards a single direction. But, she had to make sure.

“Which quake…?”

“The huge one that happened many years ago,” Toriel replied. “I remember it toppled some of my kitchenware and bookshelves.”

She figured that she’s going to ask about that particular incident. “Oh, yeah. I was a fresh Captain back then.”

“Did anyone get hurt?”

“Just mass panic, a blackout and a whole lot of damaged buildings. Nobody got hurt, fortunately.”

“Are… you sure?”

“Yeah? We didn’t have any casualties.”

Sadness hung from Toriel’s face. “Was it a natural occurrence?”

That question made Undyne halt her breath. How can she answer that without causing further problems? She didn’t want to lie to Toriel, nor did she want to get Sans into trouble.

During her time on the Surface, she learned that one can be honest without implicating someone's guilt outright: “No. The Core malfunctioned during one of the routine checkups. Went crazy enough to shake up the whole Underground. Took a while for the engineers to fix that issue.”

“I see.” Toriel flashed a weak smile. “Thank you, Undyne. For your honesty.”

“No problem. Send my regards to the kiddo!”

The strongest fish-lady Underground strode out of the teacher’s office. When she was sure that she far from Toriel’s sight, she dropped her tough exterior to freak out for a moment.

Alphys mode: On. “Ohmygodthatwasthefreakiestshit---”

Asgore wasn’t joking about his ex-wife’s sharp savviness. If Undyne had lied, she would be in boiling hot soup by now.

What's with the sudden interest about that particular incident, though…? That question continued to bother her throughout the day.

At one point, the kids thought their gym teacher was falling ill like Frisk. She proved them wrong by bench-pressing the weight of 18 schoolchildren.

Frisk’s classmates used their Art and Crafts hour to make some get-well gifts. Most of the children made cards. Paper was plenty, and it allowed the kids to decorate it whichever way they wanted.

The more adventurous ones turned the blank sheets into fake flowers, colouring the petal pieces with crayons before gluing them together.

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Undyne overheard a conversation amongst the children. Monster Kid was part of the group.

“I’m gonna make a lily!”

“Noooo, don’t!” said Monster Kid. “They’re flowers for dead people!”

“Really? I saw someone giving lilies to propose before. The super red ones.”

“Those are roses, silly! Lilies look like these.”

With a crayon in his mouth, the kid sketched a flower with five long petals that curve outward.

“See? They’re white and they have pollen stalks in the middle. I saw a lot of them when my family visited the neighbouring town the other day! These flowers surrounded the picture of an old and wrinkly human. It was a ‘wake’ where humans pay their last respects.”

“Wow, you’re smart!”

“That I am! Nyeh heh heh!

Undyne smiled. It looks like Papyrus’ Number One Fan retained his position.

Once the school bell rang to signify the end of their final class, the students placed their get-well gifts in a cardboard box. Toriel arranged them in such a way where the paper flowers won’t get crushed.

“Thank you so much, my dear children.” Said Toriel, “Frisk will be very happy to receive these. Have a safe trip home, and don’t forget your homework.”

Some of the children groaned upon the mention of homework. That reminded Undyne of her own childhood, making her lips curl into a cat-like pout. It was funny in hindsight.

Once she had finished her own duties as a teacher, the fish lady prepared for her evening jog. It’s her usual Friday routine to run a lap around the town before retiring for the weekend.

The path started from the school, turned into the forest trail, skirted the south end of Mount Ebott before circling into the main square. Then finish it with a detour to Alphys’ lab.

Whenever she felt like it, she stopped at the Rockfall. This place was Undyne’s favourite spot to choose her next rocky victim.

One would think it’s easy to find an unclaimed rock with all the space on the Surface, but no, that doesn’t seem to be the case; everything was owned by someone.

Just when she’s about to inspect a nice piece… she stubbed her foot, hard.

“OW!” she exclaimed. It hurt her enough to make her limp for a while. “What the heck was that?!”

Brushing the snow aside revealed a half-melted red candle. The process of melting and refreezing had encrusted it with ice.

“…Huh? There’s more stuff around here.” Undyne muttered to herself as she dug around the site.

Removing the fresh snow revealed another half melted candle and a frostbitten bouquet of flowers. Their petals were white, long, and curved outwards. Each stalk had a long stamen in the middle.

Undyne recalled this as the same flower Monster Kid drew in class.

“Wait a minute. Aren’t these lilies?”

Combined with the candles, it became clear that they were offerings for the dead. A few anime series did the same.

But for whom? The children who fell into Mount Ebott?

The location didn’t make sense. The Rockfall was far away from any main roads, and nestled deep in the woods. Furthermore, any offering for lost children should either be on the big hole above the Ruins, or the exit of what was once the Barrier.

“Did someone die here?” Undyne wondered out loud as she looked upwards.

The collapse happened at a narrow but tall strip, stretching all the way up to the mountain’s midway point.

A death at the mountain. For reasons Undyne couldn’t remember, she thought it was too familiar.

Then, several details clicked in place. She recalled what Cenna had said about Frisk’s birth parents.

“A quake happened on the job and they got caught in a rockslide. Didn’t make it.”

Could it be just a coincidence?

A chilling breeze blew past, rustling the conifers that did not drop their leaves for the winter.

She thought that she heard some humming from the rocks. It could be her ears playing tricks, or the structure caused the wind to resonate.

To Undyne, this felt like anime in a bad way. Horror and mystery were not fun genres to be casted in.

“Damn. This is waaaay too creepy.”

So she left the items exactly where she found them. Picking out a boulder to suplex can wait another week.

Life had a nasty knack of timing sometimes. Just when she wanted nothing more to do with the potential haunted zone, her phone rang. Undyne jolted with a shocked squeak that she would rather forget.

It’s from Alphys. Did something happen back in the lab? Her girlfriend preferred messaging, and she knew better than to bother during workout hours. Unless a fire happened…

The lab didn't catch fire, did it?

Undyne answered it. “Hello?”

“Um. W-where are you n-n-now???”

A frantic, stuttering Alphys with mysterious noises of clattering chaos going on in the background. Yes. Perhaps the lab did catch fire.

Undyne started giving her brand of intense instructions: “The fire extinguisher is in the kitchen! Stay calm, take it to the fire and yank the pin with all your might!”

“Nonononono the house is fine!” Alphys replied. “It’s Papyrus! He’s building a pentagram out of bones and talking in a weird weird WEIRD language with hand signals and so on. I’m so scared Undyne please come home now--”

It took her two silent seconds to process the absurd contents of that panic. “What?! What the hell is Mettaton doing? I thought that floofy robot is supposed to keep Papyrus from doing stupid shit!”

“Mettaton is actually helping Papyrus to build the pentagram in the name of spooky fun.”

“GODDAMMIT METTATON!!!”

That yell may have be loud enough to cause an avalanche, but she won’t stay to find out; Undyne sprinted down the trail, post haste.

The uneven mixture of thin ice and snow made it difficult for her to maintain both pace and traction. Either she almost slipped from being too fast, or bogged down by the thick puffy softness.

What was she thinking? Since when could she ever trust that robot? He can’t even keep himself from radiating his nonsensical flamboyance, let alone promote common sense in others.

She heard the whines of her frightened love from the phone speakers. Planting the phone back to her fin-ears, Undyne said: “Al? Al, stay with me! Keep me updated on Paps!”

“S-should I just pass the phone to him?” Alphys asked.

Might as well hear it from the skeleton’s mouth. “Yeah! Do that!”

She heard the shuffling from the other end. Papyrus tried to brush the call away by saying he’s busy, but when Alphys pointed out it’s from Undyne, he dropped everything to get on the line.

Thus he began. “HELLO UNDYNE! GREAT THAT YOU CALLED! I WAS JUST ABOUT TO ASK IF I CAN BORROW YOUR KITCHEN.”

With the sternest growl, Undyne questioned: “Pa. Py. Rus. What the hell are you trying to do?”

“I PROMISED UNCLE GASTER A PLATE OF REUNIONGHETTI FOR THE WEEKEND!” Papyrus replied. “I KNOW IT IS STILL FRIDAY, BUT FRIDAY EVENINGS ARE AS GOOD AS WEEKENDS.”

She had expected nothing less from his nutty logic. “Question one: who the hell is Uncle Gaster? Question two: why the hell does it involve a pentagram???”

“UNCLE GASTER IS UNCLE GASTER! APPARENTLY HE HAD HIS BITS OF EXISTENCE SCATTERED ACROSS TIME AND SPACE. WHATEVER IT MEANS. I DON’T UNDERSTAND, BUT THAT’S WHAT HE TOLD ME.”

It seemed that he turned away from the phone for a while. He started speaking in a strange, distorted language that wasn’t directed to her.

Undyne increased her pace. Some dangerous entity is trying to use Papyrus to do their bidding and he’s too innocent to notice anything wrong.

Back on the call, he continued: “OH! OK! IN SIMPLE ENGLISH, IT MEANS HE WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO STAY IN ONE PLACE LONG ENOUGH TO ENJOY ANY OF THE GREAT PAPYRUS’ CUISINES.”

“BUT THANKS TO MY SPECIFIC COMBINATION OF COLOURS, UNCLE GASTER THINKS THAT I COULD TEMPORARILY RESTORE HIS FORM BY USING SOME ANCIENT SKELETON MAGIC! WE HAVE NO IDEA IF THIS WILL WORK.”

“IT’S PRETTY COMPLICATED STUFF, BUT METTATON HELPED ME WRITE DOWN AND REHEARSE THE PASSCODE! I THINK I CAN DO THIS! ALSO YOU’VE NOT ANSWERED IF I CAN BORROW YOUR KITCHEN.”

“NO!” Undyne yelled back. “Not until I get home! And stop that ritual! You might accidentally summon some epic demon from ancient times!”

That’s what happens in anime, right?

“UNCLE GASTER SAID YOU NEED BLOOD AND MERCURY TO SUMMON A REAL DEMON. ALL WE HAVE HERE ARE BONES AND MAGIC, SO NO ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN!”

Undyne screeched. She cannot believe it’s real. It shouldn’t be real.

Why must the worst aspects of anime come true today?

“OH IT’S TIME TO START THE EXPERIMENT! I’M PASSING THE PHONE BACK TO ALPHYS. BYE!”

“WAIT GET BACK HERE--”

The call ended. He must have accidentally pressed the button while passing it to Alphys, and the lizard lady was too locked in fear to phone back.

At last, Undyne reached the town outskirts. She leapt to the nearest two-storey rooftop. Normal roads take too long to reach home. There was a parkour route that cut a diagonal path to Alphys’ place.

Jump. Slide. Jump. Grab the ledge.

Scale the window to scramble up to the next rooftop.

Apologize to the pigeon keeper for scaring his birds.

Decline Muffet’s offer of spider cider. There’s no time for that now.

Briefly wave at Snowy’s Mom and his sixteen newly adopted relatives. And reassure them that their son is not in trouble.

After a whole lot of rooftop-dashing, Undyne arrived home. She executed a flying kick to bust down the door at full running speed: no time to fiddle with keys.

Lights in the house flickered as the ritual interrupted the flow of electricity. An eerie glow shimmered from the direction of the newly-repaired training chamber.

Undyne rammed the door with all her might. But alas, she was too late: the ritual had just been completed.

Right now, she was not sure about what she should feel.

Should she be horrified?

Should she be amazed?

Should she be alarmed?

Or all three together.

Memories that she didn’t realise existed assaulted her mind.

Many years ago, a tall skeleton dressed in a custom-tailored coat stared down on her, giving a lecture about fragility and courtesy. How she shouldn’t have ambushed Sans. If it weren’t for his protegé’s gruelling drills in the art of dodging, she might have killed him by mistake.

How the child Undyne wanted to punch him in the face. However, he was an important person to King Asgore.

The Royal Scientist: W. D. Gaster.

Now, that man had become an ever-flowing monstrosity. Oozing and dripping as his squishy form took shape from a black puddle. Once whole, he took a deep breath, savouring the air of this encased space.

“Ah…” he said in a hoarse voice, “It’s great to breathe oxygen once more.”

Undyne realised she was wrong: there were monster casualties in the Core Incident. At least one. After the quake, The Royal Scientist had vanished without a trace.

And the last person who saw him alive was none other than his protegé.

Sans.