Chapter 4: The Hero of the Underground!

Frisk stopped running and doubled over, his breathing labored. "It looks like he isn't following us anymore!"

"That's not necessarily a good thing Frisk." Flowey said "We are out of his territory now, but he's one of the weaker monsters… despite his appearance to the contrary."

"So we're in another monster's territory now?" Frisk asked.

"Yeah..." Flowey responded "The crystal caverns… Undyne's territory."

"Undyne?" Frisk asked.

"She is considered the hero of the underground," Flowey responded "Of everyone you may have to fight, she is the toughest, save Asgore himself. She is one of few monsters around trained in martial arts, and she is very good at them."

"How many humans has she um…?" Frisk asked not really wanting to say it out loud.

"Killed?" Flowey finished for him. "only one is atributed to her, but that is not exactly her fault. Of the six that came before you only two got past Papyrus. One Undyne killed, the other got past Undyne using magic we had not seen before, but was defeated by Muffet the Spider."

"But Sans had two kills and Papyrus has one," Frisk said "That only makes five humans, not six."

"I know." Flowey said making a sad and dejected face "The second human killed himself, rather than fall at the monster's hands."

"Oh." Frisk said, wishing he hadn't asked. "Okay, so we have to get through here right?" /frisk asked switching gears "We should keep going."

Flowey nodded and shifted a bit under his sweater as Frisk continued walking, as he approached another Achor point and a table with something on it he saw what appeared to be a small monster with no arms or hands. He looked kind of like a dinosaur in a black sleeveless sweater.

"Is that Undyne?" Frisk said warily.

"No!" Flowey answered in disbelief "That's just a kid." nonetheless Flowey hid in Frisk's sweater for the time being. Frisk walked up to the anchor point and touched it, then began to walk away.

"Who are you?" the Monster kid suddenly asked in a mean voice. "I ain't never seen you around here before."

"Um… I-I'm Frisk." the boy answered unsure what the monster kid was trying to do.

"Frisk huh?" The kid said "What you got on ya frisk, y'know there's a fee for entering the caves."

"A-A fee?" Frisk asked "I uh… I don't have any money."

"Thought so." The monster kid said standing straight in an attempt to intimidate the smaller boy, which worked.

"If you ain't got money, I'll take something else from you." he said.

"I don't own anything." Frisk said, then a thought occurred to him "How are you going to take anything without hands?"

The Monster kid stopped and stared at frisk, half in bewilderment and half in anger.

"What's that supposed to mean twerp?!" he said angrily. Stepping forward, he was a little taller than frisk and used his size to intimidate the smaller boy.

"I didn't mean anything bad." Frisk said. "I just noticed, it's probably really hard doing your job like that, wish I could help."

The monster kid stopped again, looking at this little boy in not quite disgusted bewilderment, "Y'know what," he said irritably "Nevermind, you can go, I got more important things to do, like go watch Undyne catch some humans." with that the monster kid stalked off ahead and left Frisk alone with Flowey.

"How do you keep doing that?" Flowey asked, genuinely curious.

"Doing what?" Frisk asked as he continued to walk into the caves.

"Convincing people to like you enough not to hurt you,"

"I don't really try..." frisk said "It sort of just happens."

Flowey was silent for once thinking deeply and wondering at the strange anomaly from the surface world. He had known another kind souls like frisk once, a poor boy thrust into a rapidly devolving world who tried his best to hold the world together but…. He had failed.

"Let's just keep moving" Flowey said in a detached tone

"Okay." Frisk answered, he sensed the sadness and numbness that flowey had released with that statement, but for one reason or another felt it was better not to mention it, the two continued in silence for some time, frisk found another 'anchor point' and then moved on to find a dimly lit area with a patch of very tall grass like plants. As he walked through the plants the sound of metal on metal could be heard. Frisk froze in fear as what sounded like an armored man seemed to approach the plants.

"Who is that?" Frisk asked as quietly as he could manage

"That is Undyne." Flowey answered

Frisk risked parting the grass and watching the armored being, as he watched Sans, the red eyed skeleton from earlier approached her.

"Saw a human today..." sans said nonchalantly "But I guess you'd already know hat by now."

The armored being was silent.

"This human is like the first one," sans said "he uses red magic."

at this the armored being moved "Red magic..." it uttered, the voice surprised frisk he had expected Undyne to be a powerful man, but judging by the voice of the armored person it was a woman.

"What will you do?" Sans asked the armored woman watching curiously with his one red eye.

Undyne did not answer directly she turned her head to look at the tall grass, fortunately the light was low enough she didn't seem to notice frisk watching through the split leaves. After standing like that for some time she turned and left.

"Cryptic as ever..." sans said with a sigh he then looked towards the grass himself "Good luck little man." he said with a wink and a smile flashing his gold tooth before he faded into the darkness.

"He- He knew we were here?" Frisk asked letting the leaves go and falling backwards on his rump.

"Sans is very powerful." flowey answered.

"Not as powerful as Undyne!" A voice said nearby, looking to his right frisk saw the monster kid who had bullied him earlier "Undyne is the most powerful monster around, aside from king asgore of course, that's why she's the head of the royal guard!"

Flowey sighed but did not answer

"Is she really that powerful!?" Frisk asked half excited to see for himself and half afraid that the power would be used to kill him.

"Duh!" The monster kid answered "What? Do you live under a rock?" the kid laughed at his own little joke "Of course you do, we all do!" frisk felt bad now, he knew it humans who had trapped the monsters down here, none of this would be happening if that war had not been fought.

Frisk stood and the monster boy kicked him down "Y'know you never did pay me," he said "stay down there awhile it amuses me." after another moment of laughter the monster kid walked off saying "I'm gonna watch undyne hunt humans!"

"I don't think he knows what a human is..." Flowey finally said

"You mean he's not doing all that because i'm human?" Frisk asked "I thought that's why he was being mean to me."

"No," Flowey answered "He's just mean, if he knew what you were I think he would be afraid of you."

"Why?" Frisk asked in surprise.

"Because humans are feared in this place." Flowey answered "We've oly ever had children fall here, and even those were powerful enough to cause serious panic in the monster kingdom, the real fear is that if an adult human ever falls here, I don't think even asgore could defeat him."

"I guess that makes sense." frisk said "My teachers are all a lot stronger than me."

The two continued on, finding another area full of the tall grass they chose to once again wander through it, hoping to avoid detection. About half way through the grass Undyne made another appearance walking out of a shadowy area and into a small bit of light. She looked around and then began to move on, as soon as frisk moved forward again she stopped sensing the movement. Frisk too, stopped dead in his tracks, fear evident on his face.

The armored woman lifted a hand and blue energy swirled forming into the shape of a wide headed spear, the magical energy cast a bright blue light over the area, but even it's light could not penetrate the grass completely. Undyne stood there in an imitation of Zeus for several minutes before dispersing the blue energy and lowering her arm, apparently satisfied that nothing lurked in the grass.

"She's so cool." The monster kid's voice stated from not far once again. "She's all deadly serious, man, she doesn't seem to like you though." he commented Frisk was about to say something but monster kid interrupted "That's fine, I don't really like you either." the kid laughed and ran off into the darkness to find his hero once again.

"I'm going to strangle that little twerp." flowey said angrily.

"No don't!" Frisk said "I don't think he means to be mean."

"What?" Flowey answered "It's all he does!"

"But I think he thinks he has to be mean," frisk said "All the grown-ups in this world are mean so he thinks he has to be mean o fit in."

Flowey looked at frisk with a look of confusion and awe how, could this child possibly put together all that? And what grounds did he have for it? There was no proof, this was just a mean kid trying to get a rise out of messing with a weaker kid. Scum in flowey's eyes.

"Whatever frisk." flowey said disjointedly he was getting rather annoyed at the boy's optimistic outlook on life.

As they walked they encountered a waterfall and a room full of flower like objects. With some prompting from flowey frisk moved the flowers to create a bridge across some water and allow the duo to pass. Frisk explored and found himself a quiche hidden under a bench in a corner of this room.

"I wonder why this is here?" frisk said picking up the object.

"More importantly, how long has it been there," flowey stated "Are you sure you wanna be touching that?"

Frisk seemed to think about this for a moment "You're probably right," Frisk said as he placed the quiche on the bench and continued. On the walls were screens that lit up as he walked by them.

"Those tell the history of the monsters, the war and why we're stuck down here."

Frisk read them, the tale was dark, but sad:

We had lived in peace with humans for so long, we had no precedent for the situation that brought us low and trapped us beneath the cold earth. After Romulus took the throne the human nation began to decline and then Romulus declared war on us, blaming us for the misfortunes of the human race.

We were not prepared, they came quickly, within a day or so we were routed and defeated, Asgore I bent his knee to Romulus begging for his people to be spared, a sight we will never forget. But even in victory Romulus was not kind, he banished us beneath the earth, and summoned forth his mages to create a barrier through which we may never pass.

We have rotted away down here since, this place is cold, but we have warmed it, we refuse to let the whims of a human king rob us of our joy or our freedom to be happy.

"Why would anyone be so mean?" Frisk asked "I don't get it."

"Some people don't need a reason, they just are." Flowey responded

"I think there has to be a reason," frsik said "No one I know has ever been mean without a reason."

"You don't know these people." Flowey said as they continued, as they approached a wooden bridge they noticed that it branched out int several different bridges all interconnected with one another. As frisk began to walk down the bridge the armored being apppeared again, a gleam could be seen in the eyes behind the metal mask.

"Run for it!" flowey yelled in fear as blue energy began to swirl in the armored being's hands. Even as they began to run the energy shifted shapre to a spear and was thrown at them, then it morphed into several spears and was thrown again. The barrage went on for almost a minute without stopping, then as suddenly as it began it stopped, the armored figure still followed them, watching intently, but the barrage of spears seemed to have stopped.

"I don;t trust this." Flowey said "Keep running"

Frisk was panting at this point, beginning to run out of stamina "I don't know how much longer I can run for." he said wearily.

The eyes in the metal helmet gleamed again and the ground beneath Frisk's feet turned blue, he hurried off the mark just in time to see spears jut out of the ground, had he not moved he would have been impaled.

The armored being's speed picked up, frisk grit his teeth and through sheer determination kept pace with it. Spears continued to shoot out of the ground, on occasion spears flw towards them hurled by the armored hands of their adversary. But none of them hit their mark, until one of them did.

Frisk screamed in pain as a spear slashed his leg, blood pouring out from the wound, he hobbled onward until the iron clad figure stood before him. He looked up in fear at it, he could do nothing to this armored beast. Flowey was valiantly trying to fight the king's guard captain, but frisk didn;t notice, he stared forward, despite his previous "deaths" he knew what was coming and had a horrible sense of finality to it, like this time he wouldn't wake up.

The figure threw flowey off of it and cut the flower's vines, then raised it's arm, and an armored fist hurled downward moments later, filling frisk's sight with black.

Well that's in for now… I'm a bit bummed the chapter didn't go as long as I would have liked. I have been so busy lately I just got a new job, and sue to a severe lack of manpower they keep asking me to work extra days, don't get me wrong I love the overtime pay, but I don't love the work… poor calypso (my motorcycle) broke down on the first day of the new job so i've been taking the bus and there is nary a day off in sight. But i'm trying, i'll try to get the next chapter up within the week, that's the best I can promise.