[Intro] Smells like angry fish.

[facedanger]

Undyne arrives in the blink of an eye.

Literally. One moment she's standing her apartment, getting ready to head out; the next, she's standing in a wide hallway she's never seen before. No lights, no sounds, no awesome magical portals opening up in the floor... Nothing.

It takes her a moment to register the location change, sudden as it is. Once she does, all that comes out of her mouth for a moment is a flat, "What." She's not expecting an answer; she'd been alone at home, and even as bewildering as the situation is, she's still got enough awareness of her surroundings to notice that she's alone here, too.

For now. That thought sobers her up quickly enough.

A look out the window tells her that she's still on the surface. But the surface is big, and she doesn't recognize anything here.

Undyne is in unfamiliar place, with no idea how she got here or why. If this were an anime, the protagonist would be running into some sort of dangerous creature or a love interest (or both, in the form of a dramatic rescue sequence) any minute now.

But anime isn't real. Undyne already has a love interest. And... a grin splits her face. She has never needed to be rescued.

That being said... She steps away from the window and peers down the hallway, thoughtful. There's no telling what she'll find here. And as much as she prefers to face danger head-on, the fact that whoever brought her here (because there has to be a person causing this; folks don't just randomly teleport into strange castles for no reason!) is capable of--and willing to--snatch her out of her own home is as concerning as it is infuriating.

She'll investigate. Track down whoever's behind this and get some answers. But she's alone, and doesn't know the lay of the land. It might be best to exercise caution for now.

With that in mind, Undyne picks a direction and heads off.

-

Twenty minutes later, after finding nothing useful (likely because she's somehow gone through the same freaking hallway at least four times, despite deliberately taking steps NOT to backtrack), Undyne decides that caution can get bent. She'll do this in her usual style.

"NGAAAHH!!" Slamming one fist into a wall and summoning a glowing-blue magic spear in the other, Undyne bellows, "Whoever's in charge of this place needs to come out and face me RIGHT NOW, or else!"

Comments

[trombones]

"You ever find 'em, lemme know."

Somehow, Sans is already standing behind Undyne. Don't ask how he got there. He was actually meandering for a while until he heard that familiar yell.

The skeleton grins his usual lazy, perma-smile, but there's a small storm of mixed emotions behind it. As much as he missed his friends and family, he didn't want them here. Not ripped off the surface like he was. Maybe this place sensed how he felt. Between Undyne, Toriel...

Welp.

Not much he can do about it now.

"Sup, Cap'n?"

He'd be lying if he said Undyne wasn't a sight for sore eyes.

[facedanger]

At this point in their friendship, Undyne should probably be pretty used to Sans showing up when she leasts expects it. But she's so wound up by now that she's whipping around and gripping her spear in preparation for an attack before it registers that, hey, she recognizes that voice. And, lo and behold...

"Sans, what the hell! I almost skewered you!" She kind of looks like she might still be considering it. You know, just on principle. (Not that she would, but... She REALLY hates it when he gets the drop on her.)

But even as she complains, a bit of tension is leaving her. After all the freaky crap she's had to put up with this morning, friendly faces are more than welcome.

[trombones]

Despite that Undyne whirled around like she was about to attack, Sans was as calm as ever. It helped that he's seen her fight before, but honestly? If she really did attack, he could probably dodge it anyway. tl;dr woman please.

"Good thing I'm full of holes then, eh?" Sans says with a shrug, lifting his shirt slightly. Though clothes mysteriously made it look like he had mass somehow, there's still nothing but spine underneath. Yep, still all bones. For the record, skeleton monsters have no concept of nudity or shame. "So you technically have nobody to skewer."

Please skewer him anyway.

"You okay?"

[facedanger]

That's unsurprising. Sans is, for whatever reason, a pretty hard guy to rattle (ha ha--she hates herself a little for even thinking that). Which isn't a bad thing in this case, because Undyne would actually feel a little guilty if she'd scared one of her friends like that.

A groan, loud and over-dramatic. "Sans, oh my god. Now? Seriously?" She generally doesn't mind Sans's puns as much as, say, Papyrus--mostly because watching him get annoyed over them is hilarious--but she's had A Morning and is feeling a bit snippy.

"Ugh." She crosses her arms, the shaft of spear tucked into the crook of her elbow. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just pissed off. What the hell IS this place?!"

She frowns down at Sans. "And what about you? When did you get here?"

[trombones]

The skeleton grins just a little wider as Undyne groans, and throws his hands up in the air. Then she starts asking questions again, and he realizes he'll have to get a little more serious. You know, just a little. His hands go back in his pockets.

"Almost... a month and a half ago now," he says, shrugging. "We're in a castle in the sky. It's weird."

[facedanger]

Her lips pull back into a grimace. "Ugh. I heard about THAT much from Frisk."

If she hadn't already run into them, she'd have assumed that Sans was joking around with her. Now she's just wishing it could be that simple.

She starts counting down on her fingers the weird crap she's learned. "Flying castle. 'Time is weird'. There's two Frisks and like... three or four of you? For some reason??" why. "And... Papyrus. But not?"

A month and a half. "God. What have even being DOING this whole time??"

[trombones]

Sans knows exactly how she feels.

"Yep. Sounds like Frisk already covered it. Which is great, because now I don't have to explain anything." HYUK. "But if you want me three sans-ts, I have no idea what's going on either."

At Undyne's last question, though... he shrugs. His expression falls just slightly, because honestly? He's not sure how to answer that.

"If it helps ya keep things straight... I'm the Sans from the surface."

He taps at a feather stuck to his hoodie - something he put in there to help designated him from his other selves.

[facedanger]

"Ah, crap," she says, her expression twisting in realization. "Does this mean I'm going to have to put up with these jokes in surround sound, now??" Just throw her off the edge of the island, it would probably hurt less.

"Wait. The Sans from the surface?" That answers a couple of questions that Undyne wouldn't have even thought to ask. "The other one hasn't gotten there, yet? ...That sucks."

And then it occurs to her that she should probably mention when she's from, too. That's starting to seem like the thing to do around here.

"Oh, uh. I'm also from the surface. If you were wondering."

She hadn't noticed that feather before. It's kind of cute... not that she'll ever admit it to Sans.

[trombones]

Sans is an adorable skeleton(?), who can blame her(????????????????????????)

"Yeah... something like that," Sans says quietly, nodding as he glanced away. It's not the whole story, but Undyne was right. It does suck.

And then she mentions the surface. Sans looks back at her, silent again for a long few seconds.

"... Thought so. Sorry. That you're here, I mean."

He means it. The Frisk from home was helping him adjust to surface life. They promised him it'd be permanent. They were a good kid. He knew the others didn't need that need that kind of reassurance, but... hey. Being taken away from home still sucked.

[facedanger]

THE FEATHER ACCESSORY IS CUTE. Sans is still a lump!!!

For a moment, Undyne just watches Sans in silence, her stare as intense as ever.

"...What's with you? You're acting like we're gonna be stuck here forever!"

And then she grins. If this were some sort of video game and not real life, perhaps some energetic theme music would be playing in the background about now.

"But we're not! We didn't bust out of the Underground just to get stuck up in some dusty flying castle!!" She clenches her fist in front of her, the very picture of determination/anime dramatics. "There's a way in, so there's a way out! And we're gonna find it!!"

The circumstances are so different, she knows. There's no barrier to break, no obvious method of fixing whatever is going on here. And even if there were, monsters were sealed Underground for generations before they got a chance to see sunlight again; there's no reason to believe this will be any different.

But since when has Undyne ever needed a reason to believe something?!

[trombones]

YOU KNOW WHAT, THAT'S FAIR. He's a pretty good lump, though. Adorable garbage. Not really, though. That's Alphys.

The music sudden confidence mades Sans blink, one of the few vague signs he's surprised. Not that it was so rare. He should have expected it. He knew how determined Undyne was. At the same time, though... it reminds him of something.

He and Frisk talked about something similar when they first got here, because hey. The kid was amazing. He meant it when he said he was rooting for them, that they gave him hope. If Frisk could bust an entire civilization out of a mountain, they could all figure something out.

"... Heh."

Sans' posture visibly relaxes a little, more genuine and less bearer-of-bad-news stiff. Guess it was true. When did they need a reason? He closes one eye and shrugs.

"Meant more like I didn't want this place to drag ya into our mess, but yeah. You're right."

[facedanger]

Ok, Sans is pretty decent as far as lumps go. But Alphys is, like, really CUTE garbage. There's just no contest.

"You're damn right, I'm right!" Sans's agreement just adds fuel to the fires of Undyne's BURNING PASSION. "This mess isn't just yours anymore! We're in this together!!"

Her eye narrows, and her grin becomes a little less friendly. "ALL of us. Which means that you've gotta help, too!"

What, you think she's just gonna ASK for help? Don't be silly.