//------------------------------// // 36 - Shaky Prospects // Story: Underworld Frisk // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// Toriel mumbled something about tambourines tasting like tangerines as she woke up a day later with her hip in a much better condition. Her current location, she was in bed with Pinkie sleeping on her naked chest under the covers. Yesterday had been quite fun and somewhat educational, given that they learned the Temmie Armor works to heal even while the wearer sleeps. She was capable of walking again and the Temmie Armor went to Undyne before they all went to sleep again. She stayed where she was as she watched Pinkie snoring away on top of her, cuddling against her warm body. Nothing was more comfortable than snuggling Pinkie in bed and Toriel was not about to remove her right arm wrapped tightly around the pony’s body. Her left hand was in the midst of caressing Pinkie’s head, neck and mane as she thought about yesterday; it was a day for relaxing at the hotel that Pinkie and Muffet owned. Muffet continued to be an obsessively generous nutcase and Red was a little less than happy to be near the spider’s countenance. They had spent the day doing things around the hotel by themselves. Toriel and Pinkie talked with monsters passing through in the lobby and held fun conversations; a lot of monsters were passing through as Pinkie was something of an interesting attraction. There was a small kerfuffle with a kangaroo monster named SoSor Ray, it was quickly pointed out to him that there was in fact no art meeting going on at the time and that he was causing a ruckus with his living art doodles. After that Pinkie befriended him and he was on his way to do other things instead of making a nuisance of himself. Yesterday had been generally quiet; it had Toriel wondering if today could be like that. Considering they were burning down a house and meeting up with Mifty with whatever she was bringing to the table, it wasn’t likely. She thought that the situation was entirely silly, but who was she to stop Undyne and Pinkie? Not to mention the fact that they were going to make snacks near what would be the burning house in question. Toriel just shook her head, she was going to indulge in the insanity and keep careful watch over Pinkie while she did so to make sure her mare friend didn’t get hurt. All she had to do now was wonder how the four of them were going to get there. Alphys was coming with them and Muffet was staying behind to finish some kind of project she had going on. Red was going to be watching the laboratory with Gyftrot and the monster amalgamates while Alphys was gone. Kid had long since wandered off after the party, who knows when he would pop up again. “Pinkie…” Toriel gentle patted the pretty peppy ponies head. The pony just tightened her grip against Toriel’s chest digging her body further in against the fluffy warmth Toriel provided. The pony was like a cuddly little tick and Toriel couldn’t help but enjoy the affection she was receiving through sleepy nuzzles. “It’s time to wake up.” “Five more minutes…” Pinkie mumbled as she drowsily kissed Toriel’s cheek. Sighing, the smiling goat lady decided to acquiesce to her demand of getting five more minutes of rest. - Turning left from the elevator outside of the front entrance to the lab they were about to go down the stairs to see if their transport was waiting for them when they were stopped. The transport in question would decide on whether or not they had to walk all the way back to Waterfall’s quiet place. “Hey, hold up guys!” Hearing Muffet shouting for them to stop caused them to wait and see what she wanted. “Are you actually coming with us to ‘Burning House’ Muffy?” Pinkie perked up slightly as more friends meant more fun at Undyne’s, she saw Muffet visibly shudder with fear at the mention of being near something that was burning. “No, I’ve got other things to do today Mistress Pie, but these two wanted to go with you as they want to go junk diving with Alphys. Since it’s in the area and you’re all going there anyway.” Muffet held out her upper right two arms and motioned two monsters forward, it was Catty and Bratty the best friends for life. “Like, we want to go with you guys. It’s been too long since we’ve hung out with Alphys and now is a perfect chance to do that.” Bratty started out to be inevitably followed up by Catty. “Yeah, we heard you were going to be in the area of the dump and we wanted to go with you big sister.” Catty followed up with a bright friendly smile. Alphys was the big sister to the two of them, even if she was no longer bigger than them. It didn’t matter to Catty; Alphys would always be the big sister. “Well sure, but we still have to find out if the transportation is around today. It’ll mean the difference between walking and riding our way there.” Alphys was surprised when she was hugged by the two and she blushed when she noticed Undyne eyeing them. It wasn’t suspicious eyeing; it was more like eyeing in the sense if they try to go too far with Alphys, then she’ll physically rip their limbs off. Undyne was physically up and about; the Temmie Armor could only do so much for her though and didn’t give her a new eye. Some fleshy mass did start to grow in her eye socket that still glowed ominously with magical energy, it wasn’t a working eye but it would cover up her eye hole in case her eye patch fell off and she was happy at the prospect of possibly being able to swim again without having to cover a portion of her face with a taped down sheet of plastic. She did return the armor to Pinkie saying that it definitely belonged with her and gave thanks for letting her borrow it long enough to heal up, they were now friends even if Undyne was still a somewhat aggressive. As they moved down the stairs to see if the transportation was available, Muffet waved them off with a smile before she narrowed her eyes. The spider monster looked to the left and right and turned to a relatively large spider that moseyed up to her. “How’s project ‘Grave Digger’ coming along?” The spider held up a sheet of paper with one of its legs for Muffet to take into her lower left hand, she turned around to walk back towards the lab looking it over as the spider fell into step with her. “We really need to step up our timetable and I don’t want Pinkie finding out about this until it’s too late for her to do anything about it. Also we have access to a laboratory to speed things up! So, shall we?” - At the bottom of the staircase the five monsters and lone pony saw a river; it was empty of transportation, for a few second at least. A strange cloaked figure rowed up to them in a large gondola that could carry eight monsters somewhat comfortably. “Tra la la~, beware the man who speaks in hands, for he gathers his spirit from the grave from beyond the dark other lands.” The river person intoned adorably and continued on. “He grows like fungus upon that which he really shouldn’t. Avoid him as best you can, as for approaching him even I wouldn’t.” “That’s our transport to Waterfall; we call her the River Person… mostly because she keeps forgetting that her name is Sharon Styx. She’s a bit creepy, but she’s harmless… I think… never actually seen her use any soul attacks or do anything aside from push that boat around up and down the river without pay every single day.” After a moment of pondering the cloaked figure that looked at them as she docked the boat, Alphys just had to ask. “What do you do for a living aside from drive that boat?” “La la~ I am a mystery unto myself, de dum~ I’m resting my boat so as to stock its pantry shelf.” Sharon apparently spoke in a lackadaisically airy manner, but not the kind of Airy that the clinically insane Pinkie kept talking to. We’ll bravely default to the plot to carry on as it should. “Do doo~ with passengers I do get a lot of love, speaking truths is what I’m fond of. Heed my warnings for the approach of the man who speaks in hands. You have places to be and I will take you there for free, for I like to row. So please fill my boats shelves so we can go.” “Man who speaks in… you don’t mean…” Toriel was about to say Wind-Ding’s name as she boarded the boat. Only for Sharon to cut her off, by changing her creepy light hearted tone by deepening it noticeably. “Lolo~ do not speak his name for it is not to be said, for he should very well be dead. His pieces scattered all over the place, gone without a single ability for anything to trace. Why one would be unfortunate if there was involvement of teleporting between time and space, for they might be unfortunate to pick up some of his dirty grime in such a place.” Sharon continued to wait for everyone to board and once Undyne sat down, she started rowing the boat. “Stroke stroke, here we go~! Row, row, row my boat, gently as can be~! Better not tip it over, or unfriendly passengers I might see~!” Pinkie was amused by the strangers singing and clapped her hooves; she wanted to strike up a conversation with her. “Hello I’m Pinkie Pie, is this all you do day in and out, if so then what do you eat or when do you find the time to? Also is Sharon Styx you’re real name?” The ever curious Pinkie got an odd response to her question from River Person Sharon Styx in an ominous manner. “Ooodalalee~ names are important for yes they get you far, for equines like yourself they are even prophetic as they often are. For the names in your species, ‘little sweet’, are always detailed to your jobs and correct. Call me River, for I hardly ever use my actual name as sharing sticks is not something that I do in that respect.” Sharon then got a bit more ominous. “Oh oh~ I do not know the ‘what’ when the shroud soon covers you, but I know in the end… you’ll be baking with two. Ho ho~ the sweet buns will turn out quite nice, but it will cause turmoil in the oven by at least twice. Hee hee~ the broken heart can mend for a task that is tall, as long as you don’t mind that it leads to an angel’s sordid fall. Know darkness is coming for you and that I eat plenty when I’m not busy rowing; the buns will eventually be glazed upon by the half dozen boxes showing. ” “You kind of sound like that enchantress that visits Ponyville. She’s also weird and mysterious.” With those words from Pinkie they all sat in silence contemplating Sharon’s words. Even Pinkie was perplexed when she mentioned ponies having prophetic names, this was the first time she’s ever seen this monster and they had never met previously. River was a bit weird, but that that was not a bad thing. Pinkie liked weird and was exceptionally good at pulling it off personally. - They had come across the Temmie Pirates in transit, they all said hello to the snuggly belly rub hunting pirates. Aside from that the trip was entirely uneventful aside from small conversations and the lab coated lizard showing off her lemon launching system, she called it a BUSTER. It stood for Ballistics Utilizing Super Tree Extractions Rapidly and it was made in Alphy’s favorite color which was Undyne blue. “Heehee~ here we are, I hope my services were not subpar.” River docked the boat at another staircase; after they all got off she started rowing again. “Tata~ my boat Avalon helped me get you to where you needed to be, if you need more help just wait at one of these spots and me you’ll eventually see.” “Thanks for the ride River!” After getting off the boat and looking up the stairs Pinkie recognized the area; they were near Gerson’s shop. She immediately charged up the stairs and through the doorway to see the old turtle sitting in his spot, he smiled as he spotted Pinkie and got up to greet her. “Oh, you’re back Pinkie, how did things go with Undyne? Did she cause you a bit of trouble? She’s quite a fearsome monster.” The old tortoise monster Gerson chuckled dryly and received a surprise when a cupcake was placed before him by Pinkie who hadn’t forgotten. “What’s this then, a new curiosity for me to explore?” “It’s a cupcake! You eat it, but you have to unwrap it first though.” Pinkie smiled at Gerson who nodded at her hopping form. The old coot couldn’t get to the proffered snack when he received his second visitor that day; Undyne ran in and gave him a hug. “Well if it isn’t the salty old ‘Hammer of Justice’ himself! Hey grandpa, how are you doing? You look to be really getting up there.” Undyne smacked him on his shell with a hearty slap and the tortoise just chortled at her rudeness. “I see you’ve made a new friend Undyne, good for you… so… how are you and…” Gerson was stopped as he saw quite a few more visitors walk in, he recognized Catty and Bratty as the two came around the area once in a while and he definitely knew Alphys. Alphys was a bit spotty in personality to Gerson, she was shy and vibrantly intelligent and the apple of Undyne’s missing eye. It seems the lizard had become a bit braver in recent times and it was good to see young folk that were obviously in love. Being the grandfather type, he couldn’t help but rib the strong willed and violent Udyne. “Oh ho, what’s this now… I see someone’s managed to finally domesticate you.” “I’m not domesticated old man; I’m here to burn down my house with lemons!” Undyne shouted in anger before she went over to Alphys to hold her hand with a toothy smile. “Sure you are, not at all interested in getting some alone time with your girlfriend.” Gerson replied and both Catty and Bratty cooed at that response, he frowned when he saw Toriel at the back of the visitors looking at him with a frown in equal measure. “Well you best be on your way, you’ve apparently got better things to do than talk to an old codger like me. Lady Toriel, always a pleasure to see you again even if you’re not very forgiving.” Toriel just nodded as the group exited his little store and dug out alcove that Gerson called home. They turned right to head towards the quiet area. It took a moment, but both Catty and Bratty suddenly had a realization. “Like, oh my goodness Catty… doesn’t Mettaton own a house in this area?” Bratty was still a fan despite the slightly aggressive actions between him and their friend Pinkie. Pinkie was okay and Mettaton seemed to be friends with her now, she liked the music for that last performance. “Oh my goodness you are so right Bratty! We’ve got to see where he came from; you know the humble beginnings stuff and all that!” Catty’s tail wagged as she was also still a fan, that last show with Pinkie was phenomenal. She couldn’t believe how well both Mettaton and Pinkie could dance. “Napstablook is probably here, so we should say hello to him since we’re in the area. I’m sure you two would like to get to know him as he’s Mettaton’s cousin.” Toriel watched as the two girls squeal with excitement, while she was licking her own lips at the fact that she was kind of hungry for snails again. Waterfall had many interesting places and many nice monsters to meet. Maybe this time the Thunder Snails wouldn’t catch fire. - Pinkie, being the main character of this story, requires a bit more focus. “But I’m not actually doing anything interesting Airy.” She sat next to a pool of water in the Quiet Area with Onion-san just tapping out a small beat next to her. “Besides Alphys is treasure digging with Catty and Bratty, Toriel is off at the snail farm buying more snail snacks and Undyne… well she’s right here.” The view pans slightly to the right to show Undyne with a bored look on her face. She scratched at her left side with the butt of a conjured spear and just stands there looking all nonchalant and cool. “Well we’re not burning down my house without Alphys or her invention… so want to see the inside of my home or something before we get around to it?” Undyne was rather bored at the moment with her house not burning down and going up in flames, but hanging out with Pinkie seemed like a thing to do while Alphys was catching up with old friends she used to be like a sister to. “Sure, what does your house look like on the inside?” As she asked this, Pinkie was led up to Undyne’s rather scary monstrous looking house. “Surprisingly nice if it’s like it usually is, sorry for the mess if there is one.” Opening the door to lead the pony inside over what looked like the tongue of the house; Undyne took in a breath of air of her home that was soon to be destroyed. She’s destroyed it numerous times before, but it never stayed destroyed nor was any damage done to it ever permanent. Pinkie blinked and looked about the average normal looking room with yellow and blue tile flooring, to the immediate left was a bit of purple carpeting with several sweat stains in it and a window. Slowly she panned her eyes to the right taking it all in. A piano, behind it a blue door leading to what could be Undyne’s bedroom. Against the far wall to the right of the door was a sink, followed by a stove for cooking, a cutting board on a counter with a small drawer for utensils and a refrigerator. The walls were lined with cute blue wallpaper with pink fish shapes. In front of the refrigerator was a large sword with a blue hilt just lying on the ground, to the left of that and slightly closer was a table with a doily that also had a fish shape in the middle of it, there was a single stool to sit on and the table sat on a square piece of purple rug. “Not quite what I was expecting… it just looks so… normal. Also you play the piano? That’s rather classy.” The room was in fact so normal that it was breaking Pinkie’s ability to react to it all properly, the house looked like a large monster from the outside but on the inside it was way too quaint for Pinkie’s comfort. She was expecting something a little more… gruesome. Apart from the sword, there wasn’t much to the room aside from the glaring normalcy that had Pinkie completely on edge. “Yeah, I do play the piano, what of it? It help keeps the fingers nimble for wielding my spears. Anyway that spot of carpeting is where I perform some exercises and you can clearly see what everything else is. I have all the amenities of a low budget bachelor.” Undyne didn’t seem too proud or too vain about it, it was just her house after all. The very same one that had numerous zoning laws against it being anywhere near New Home. After thinking about something, she smirked. “Hey, burning down my house will actually give me a reasonable excuse to move in with Alphys for a while!” “Speaking of housing Undyne, what’s New Home like? I’ve seen the Home Ruins already.” Pinkie wanted to see New Home when they got back to the laboratory, she wanted to ride the elevator up to the city to meet all the strange and wonderful monsters that lived there. “It’s a bit cramped actually, there a lot of good monsters there that wouldn’t hurt a fly. At least not while I’m around and as far as I know Asgore hasn’t fired me from captain of the guard yet, so I’m still good for calling myself that.” Rubbing the side of her head Undyne decided to try and do something nice, she wasn’t particularly good at having guests. “I’ll show you around when it’s time to do whatever you and Toriel are trying to do. I want to believe that’s helping everyone out, so I will. So… uh… want something to drink?” “Sure, do you have tea?” This was starting to get a little awkward for Pinkie; Undyne didn’t seem to really know what to do with a guest in her home. At least Undyne knew what she liked and she definitely liked nerdy lizard monsters. “Sure… take a seat and I’ll get right too it.” Undyne felt the tension growing within her; she almost couldn’t take it as Pinkie sat down. She had a lot of bravado, strength and courage. What she didn’t have was any real social skills and she hadn’t incidentally hurt anything in the last few days. Pinkie sat at the table idly tapping her hooves as Undyne went to work to fill a fish shaped teapot with some water to boil. The tapping of her hooves caused a bit of dust to float up into her nose which scrunched up slightly as it inhaled the dust. She tried to rub her nose and then she let out a very tiny sneeze and something shot past her head barely an inch away and she heard a loud crash. Turning her head to look behind her, Pinkie could see Onion-san covering her head and cowering at the spear wobbling the wall it hit. The wall was slightly cratered and that was after causing a large hole in Undyne’s house from the raw force it was thrown with. “You could have hurt someone with that, you hear!” Onion-san was now righteously angry and waving a curled tentacle at Undyne. “Sorry, I’m a bit twitchy today as I finally got off medical leave!” Undyne was a bit of a violent person, she was naturally predisposed for hurting others by accident or on purpose, giving her a position as a royal guard made perfect sense in that respect. Anyone that so much as considering doing something bad just knew that Undyne would come to kick their ass for it, other than violence she liked to stay fit through exercise and she hadn’t been capable of either of her favorite activities because Pinkie had put her in traction. It was only now that she was healed that, she was almost ready to do bodily harm even to someone who hadn’t done anything wrong. “Also that was a bad reflex and I haven’t beaten anyone up for several days!” “Apology accepted, you hear!” Onion-san was sticking around for ‘Burning House’; she heard they were going to have some sugar crackers for the occasion and wanted some. Also marshmallows and chocolate, but she really just liked the sugar crackers. She knew of Undyne’s reputation, frankly everyone did, so she forgave her for the incident immediately. Pinkie went to stand up and three spears immediately destroyed the table, she sat back down and stared flatly at Undyne who gave her a fishy grin. “Wow, you’re really wound up aren’t you?” Was all Pinkie had to say to Undyne as she took a sip of the proffered tea, it was rather decent tea with some honey in it. Having the complete and utter normalcy of the room horrifically shattered in an explosive manner, Pinkie was finally able to relax despite almost getting a spear to the head. Everything was right with the world from that moment on. She took almost dying because of the actions of a friend in stride, as it was not like this was the first time this has happened. “A little bit, yeah.” Undyne had to admit that almost skewering Pinkie made her quite upset with herself. - They were all gathered outside of Undyne’s home a few hours later on the fish bone mat that a mannequin still sat on, said mannequin was facing the house like everyone else. Alphys hefted her invention, the BUSTER, at the house. She had explained that the invention involved compressing her botanical masterminded super lemon tree that grew napalm enriched lemons into the barrel of the BUSTER, the BUSTER itself took in light which gave the tree the power to quickly grow lemons and upon pulling the trigger she could fire a maximum of three lemons in one go. Quite frankly it was a marvel of scientific engineering and a very dangerous one at that; Alphys would eventually want to create a mega version of it. “Well time to use the BUSTER, let’s see what my baby can do!” Alphys fired the BUSTER three times and the hand cannon made adorable plinking noises as the lemons shot out and swiftly set the house of fire. “House fire officially started with lemons, so marshmallows anyone?” Pinkie took sitting a safe distance away from the fire holding a marshmallow on a stick; they had sweet crackers and chocolate which made for a nice treat when combined into a sugary sandwich. In the middle of all this several of her friends started singing a weird song with the words Kum-Bay-Ya, Pinkie didn’t understand it and had to have it explained to her what it meant. - Seven monsters and one equine were lying on their backs in Napstablook’s house when a knock at the door was heard. Nobody moved to get the door as nobody wanted to get up, the last six or so hours had been rather wonderful and fun. The knocking on the door sounded again and everyone slowly turned their heads to Napstablook who was lying on his back next to Shyren staring at the cosmos. “Sorry Pinkie, but someone has to take charge and stop being lazy. If I’m to continue being considered a queen by my people, then I should act like it and take charge.” Toriel unwound her arms from around Pinkie’s body and gently shoved her off to the side and stood up to go get the door, despite Pinkie’s complaining about her comfy goat shaped pillow leaving her to the cruel cold hard wooden floor. “Airy is right; you’re cruel to leave me on the floor!” The air would like to thank Pinkie if it could. “I don’t care what the words in the air are saying at the moment Pinkie.” Well that was kind of harsh of Toriel; the words in the air never did anything to her but tell her story, describe everything she does and even helped her once to save Pinkie and the plot. “I know, right? No respect for you at all.” As Pinkie addressed the ceiling, Toriel shook her head and opened the door to see a friendly froggit they both knew. “Queen Toriel, Lady Pinkie, I am so happy to see the two of you are doing well.” Mifty bounced into the room looking to be healthy if a little haggard. “I’ve traveled a long way to meet up with you, we have much to discuss.” “That we do… you said you had an idea as to how we can break the barrier?” Toriel was focused and the other monsters were sitting up to listen in, as was Pinkie. “That is going to take a little bit of study.” Mifty had come ahead of her traveling party, the rest of the monsters she had been traveling were being careful as they traveled along; she personally took to the river to get here. “The thing is… we don’t need to break the barrier, because if I’m right it’ll break itself under the right circumstances.” Mysteriously Informative Frog Thing got a lot of looks for that statement, most of them disbelieving and or hopeful. “Why did you need to come all this way, especially when you could have just told us over the phone?” Toriel was curious about Mifty’s reasons for coming so far. “I have to see this through myself.” After saying this Mifty started looking about. “Can someone get me a piece of paper and something to write with?” Napstablook floated off and came back with a sheet of paper and a pen that looked to be slightly chewed on, all the monsters and Pinkie gathered around the Froggit who drew a simple circle and put a large dot in the center of said circle. “Okay to explain how I figured this out, I’ll need to ask a question. If humans thought us nothing more than savage beasts then they had the right idea in how they went about making the barrier to contain us. If we were actually smarter we would have been free a long time ago.” Mifty turned to Toriel and pointed to the dot on the paper. “That dot represent monsters inside the barrier, the circle is the barrier and will not let monsters out. One monster got through the barrier twice despite this impossibility.” Putting a dot outside the circle Mifty wrote the name ‘Asriel’ above it. “Here’s what I know and Alphys will likely agree with me on this, but no monster can breach the barrier under normal circumstances. Now here’s my question that will help everyone figure it out.” After a pause Mifty looked to everyone to see that they were paying attention. “What was the end result of the scanning spells?” “Inconclusive as we couldn’t get anything from the barrier at all and as I said to you before, scanning it with magic doesn’t work.” When she said that Toriel could see the Froggit grinning brightly, something about the statement caused her to pause and think on it. “There, THAT, that’s what the problem is! In all its simplicity, that’s why we’re still stuck under the barrier. It makes sense as to how Asriel breached the barrier; he incidentally did it by having Chara’s soul wrap around his magic.” Seeing that some of the monsters and Pinkie were upset Mifty had to explain it better. “The problem is magic! We’re magical beings; the barrier was created to stop anything magical from passing through it and Asriel only could because the human soul he had prevented it from detecting that he was magical. If I’m right, then the reason the barrier is still standing is because it’s passively feeding off the magic of every monster in the Underworld. That’s why it’s still powered; we’re the ones powering our own damned prison!” All the monsters eyes widened, the implications suddenly became rather clear. “Well that explains why my cutie mark isn’t appearing on my flank.” Pinkie looked to her flank and could now quite clearly understand why her cutie mark wasn’t present if her magic was being drained passively. She got slightly upset at the thought that she was helping the monsters stay stuck down here. “Um, does this mean I’ve been contributing my magic to the barrier as well?” “Pinkie… don’t get upset because of this, we’ve all been contributing to it without realizing it.” Toriel place a kiss on her upset mares head and then turned to Mifty. “Now that we know this, what’s your idea Mifty?” “We stop the barrier from absorbing magic, basically we design a way to cold turkey it’s access to any magic at all and it’ll eventually collapse without anything to continue powering it. We monsters use a lot of magic and we do so constantly. In hindsight it should have been rather obvious what was powering the barrier, but we really don’t have good educational systems and that’s why I want to work at Queen Toriel’s side when she builds that school she wants. Wherever she chooses to build it, I want to be there to help educate anyone who wants to learn.” Muffet turned back to the piece of paper drew an arrow pointing at the circle and labeled it magic absorbing barrier. “Thankfully the barrier isn’t actively draining our magic; it would have killed us all by now if it did that and would have destroyed the world in one apocalyptic scale magical blast resulting from the barrier overloading. At least the humans had enough common sense to make it passively absorb magic; the effect hasn’t been noticeable to us at all.” “That could work; it’s quite a feasible idea.” Nodding as she crossed her arms Alphys continued on in a slightly defeated tone. “We would still need to study the barrier directly to get an exact idea of what we can do to achieve this.” “All this stuff about the barrier is like, so heavy and junk.” Freedom was at hand and Bratty could almost feel it. “It’s nice to know that we might see what the above world looks like, we might even be able to see the sky.” “Yeah, to think we’ll be able to see the above world in our lifetimes! We won’t need to hurt anyone to do it either, that sounds good to me.” Catty didn’t like the idea of hurting anyone to achieve freedom. Sure humans stuck them down here, but she didn’t think all humans were evil. “We don’t have a set solution yet, but we can make one with this information. We will go to New Home and to talk to Asgore about this, I’ll personally pummel it into his skull to listen to me before he does something stupid.” A knock at the door distracted everyone from Toriel willing to bodily harm the king. Hopping over to the door, the Froggit opened it and then turned to everyone. “Yeah there’s one other reason for my coming here… you remember when I said something came up?” Mifty moved out of the way of the door and there were a lot of monsters waiting outside and they were staying protectively around a single creature that looked at Pinkie and ran forward to give her a friendly hug. Toriel just looked at the smiling human hugging Pinkie; this human bore an eerily similar appearance to Chara. The human started petting Pinkie who nuzzled them to receive a sweet sounding laugh, the kind of laughter that Toriel hadn’t heard in a long time.