RUINS

Toriel fussed over Frisk's outfit as they both stood in a room by the start of the RUINS.

"And you're sure you have everything in your backpack?" "Yep." "And your new clothes fit well?" "Sure do." "And you have your phone with you, correct?" "Yes, Toriel, everything is going to be fine."

*Sigh*

Toriel stepped away from Frisk and gave him one final look over. "Sorry, my child, I just worry."

"It's completely fine." Frisk replied genuinely, "I'll be back before noon, I promise." He assured her.

"Very well, my child. Good luck and have fun." Toriel said as she made her way back to the house.

*Sigh*

This time it was Frisk who was exasperated. Toriel was incredibly lovely and a good person, but sometimes she was very overprotective. Hours this morning was spent getting Frisk ready for this relatively short trip. But at least now he had a backpack to store anything he found in. This was another difference from the game: Frisk had no idea how or if he could use an inventory.

He also got a change of clothes, which was good because he didn't want to be like a game protagonist and wear the same outfit every day. Though it was a bit awkward wearing a lime and cream-colored long-sleeved sweatshirt with red-brown pants. Knowing who had probably worn it before.

There was another difference between the game and this world. It was all but confirmed that Chara was the narrator of Undertale while connected to Frisk through the journey. But nothing Frisk had seen seemed to point to any ghost child possessing him. So did that mean that ghost Chara was just sitting in the hole room? Honestly, Frisk had no idea.

Deciding that he should probably get a move on, Frisk looked between the door and the switches that were supposed to open it. Frisk had a decent memory, but he could definitely not remember a beginner puzzle from a game he played months ago. And he also didn't see anything that would indicate what buttons to press. So did he just have to guess the combination and hope to get it right?

→ [30 Minutes Later]

Frisk sat on the ground, seriously annoyed. Seriously, what were those first 3 puzzles? The first one was a pain in the ass and took the most time. The second one was absurdly easy because Toriel had badly erased her indicators on what switches to flip to lower the spikes. But the third puzzle was hard again! It gave almost no indicators to where you were supposed to step to get across spikes that littered the ground. Luckily he had activated his Aura because he may or may not have gotten the pattern wrong a couple times.

Now that he thought about it, didn't Toriel guide the player through the first couple of traps?

Whatever, he got past them and now has them committed to memory, even if he hoped he would never have to go through them again (Because that would mean Flowey reset). So to take his mind off that thought, Frisk decided to examine the room he was walking through.

It was weirdly long, with only some green vines interspersed on the purple walls. It definitely looked like a RUIN. There was even an oddly placed white pillar at the end of the room.

Deciding that this would be as good of a time as any, Frisk activated his Aura. His goal was to keep it on through the whole journey because while he can keep it up through a fight when not in combat, it tends to deactivate without him noticing.

When Frisk walked into the next room, it only took a couple steps before he was surprised. A Froggit came jumping out of the leaves and right towards him. However, it was pretty easy to lean out of the way and let the oddly large frog monster sail right past him.

"Hey, you're Froggit, right? We don't have to fight, you know." Frisk tried to explain to the creature, but it didn't seem like the frog understood.

Froggit seemed to tense up for a second, and Frisk was confused for a second before he dove sideways. Froggit's tongue came sailing past where he was a second before at a surprisingly fast speed.

"Hey! Come on, you're a cool frog, right?" Frisk tried, "Come on, you saw me dodge that attack, right? How about we both just go on our own way." Frisk tried to reason with Froggit. If he didn't take this chance, Frisk would probably just have to run away.

Luckily Froggit seemed to see reason and hopped back down where Frisk had come from.

Frisk was actually surprised. With so many things different, he hadn't expected Froggit to let him go after just a few attacks. With that done, Frisk decided to explore the room that was to the left of him first. Inside was what looked like a bowl of candy that said, 'take one.' Frisk decided to take one and leave.

The following few traps were pretty easy to figure out. But Frisk had to wonder how someone without Aura would be fine after falling down the broken ground into a pit of leaves. There were a few more encounters with monsters like Whimsun and a talking rock that was definitely trying to get him killed, but everything else went pretty smoothly.

Just as Frisk walked into a room with cheese glued to the table for some reason. He felt a buzzing in his pocket. Picking his phone out, he answered it.

"Hey, Toriel, what's up?"

"Just making sure that you are ok… so are you?" She asked anxiously.

"Yep, everything is fine. I'm in the room with the cheese glued to the table now."

"Perfect, you are making good time. Well, then I'll leave you to it." She said before hanging up.

"I'm almost positive I will be getting a few more of those before I get back," Frisk said, shaking his head and continuing forward.

The next room caused Frisk to pause in confusion for a second before recognizing the figure that lay down blocking his path. It was Napstablook, and he really did not look happy right now. Feeling awkward about just moving through him, Frisk tried to get his attention.

"Excuse me," Frisk said.

"ZZZZZ" were the only noises that came from the ghost's mouth.

Frisk shook his head at the horrible fake sleep noises and just decided to try and pass through. He was a ghost, right?

This did not seem to make Napstablook happy because right as Frisk touched him, he flew into the air crying. But these were not normal tears, they were actually made of magical energy, and some came right towards where Frisk was standing.

The 'attack' should not have been more brutal to dodge than Flowey's, but without his stick and because it caught him by surprise, Frisk was actually caught in the Aura by a tear. It didn't really do anything to him, but Napstablook looked further depressed that he hurt someone and started to cry harder.

After a couple minutes of dodging tears and trying to calm the ghost down with compliments and smiles, Frisk finally succeeded. And Napstablook left the room a bit happier, with a top hat made of his tears on his head.

The rest of the puzzles in the section were reasonably easy as well. Frisk made sure to explore the rooms thoroughly, if only because he had no idea if there were any items he could find. He even went as far as to fall down extra holes in the floor to explore the different rooms.

This eventually worked out as he found a faded red ribbon that seemed to be filled with some kind of magic that Frisk could barely detect even while holding it. But he tied it to his wrist anyway, just in case it did something.

The only slightly hard time he ran into was when he had to fight two Loox at a time. Their combined squiggly eye beams forced him to run away before he lost any more of his Aura.

Frisk had just gotten off the phone again with Toriel, he was exasperated at her, but all things considered, things were going well.

Which, of course, meant that it could only get worse.

"One more day." A familiar voice called out from behind Frisk.

Frisk panicked, spinning around and trying to brandish a stick that wasn't there at the source of the voice.

"Why are you here, Flowey?" Frisk questioned cautiously as he examined the flower. There was no doubt that Flowey was looking worse for wear. Frisk could still see the cut where his spear had hit and the burns around the area, while not as bad as before, were still visible.

Still, it didn't seem like it was bothering Flowey that much.

"Hahahaha." Flowey laughed before his smile turned into a frown. "You're boring me." He said flatly.

Frisk scowled at the comment, "I'm not here for your entertainment."

"Oh? I wasn't asking." He responded darkly. "You have one more day to leave the ruins before I come and kill both you and Toriel."

Frisk didn't get a chance to respond before Flowey had already dove back into the ground and left.

This pretty much ruined the rest of the trip for Frisk. Luckily he only had to cautiously move through a couple more rooms before he finally made it back to Toriel's house.

"My child." Toriel greeted Frisk at the front door. "How was the rest of your trip?" She asked.

Her enthusiasm only reminded him about the choice he was going to make. Should he leave the house before Flowey's deadline? He wasn't fond of taking orders from the flower, but if he didn't, Toriel would probably get hurt.

"It was good." He responded with a fake smile while walking through the door.

"My child?" Toriel asked worriedly, "Are you ok? Did something happen?"

Dang, Frisk really wasn't the best actor; Toriel could already tell something was wrong. But he couldn't talk about it with her now. He wasn't ready.

"I'm sorry, Toriel, could I think in my room for a while?" He tried.

Toriel hesitated for a second before a frown fell over her face. "Very well, you may." She said reluctantly, "But please do talk with me about anything you need. This is your home now; you should be able to feel welcome."

"Thanks," Frisk said before retreating into his room and throwing his body down on the bed.

→ [A Few Hours Later]

Frisk sat on the side of his bed, psyching himself up to leave the room.

He had decided to try and tell Toriel what was going on. It was a hard choice that didn't sit perfectly with him, but it was still the best option. Right now, he could never beat Flowey alone, not without dying 30 times again and getting that PERSEVERANCE power boost.

And Toriel was strong. She was the queen of the monsters and had access to copious amounts of fire magic that almost blew Flowey away with one hit. So maybe, just maybe, they could beat him together.

This wouldn't solve the problem of the resets. Still, because Toriel was very close during the beginning of a reset, it might be possible for Frisk to fight a running battle with Flowey to reach her and then beat him again. It wasn't much of a plan, but if they made it so hard to kill them, Flowey could get sick of it and give up.

With a determined look on his face, Frisk left the room to go and talk to Toriel.

"Toriel," Frisk decided to start off strong when he got into the sitting room where Toriel sat. "I need to tell you something important."

Toriel looked surprised at his assertiveness but gestured for Frisk to sit down. "Of course, my child. What is bothering you?"

Frisk frowned at this point and just decided on doing this quickly.

"That flower you saved me from when we first met… He came to me again when I was exploring the RUINS." Frisk began.

"What! Why did you not call me to come help!" Toriel exclaimed.

"Please, Toriel, let me finish." Frisk pleaded with his eyes.

Toriel looked reluctant but nodded her head anyway.

"Ok," Frisk continued, "He didn't attack me this time. But he did say that I had to leave the RUINS in a day, or he would come here and kill both of us." Toriel's face seemed to cycle between many emotions before landing on anger.

"Please let me finish before you say anything." Frisk interjected preemptively, "Flowey, that is the flower's name, met me in the same room you saw us fighting in. But you showed up to save me before he could kill me." Toriel nodded because she remembered what had happened.

"The truth is-" Frisk hesitated. "The one you remember was actually my 30th time-fighting Flowey. Flowey has the ability to control the timeline and reset after he was defeated." Frisk was struggling at remembering this part. "H-He killed me 29 times before I even managed to get a hit on him. He enjoys playing with me because I remember what happened in those resets! I'm not even sure why he didn't reset." Frisk mumbled out at the end, his eyes tearing up.

Toriel looked taken aback at Frisk's words for a second before realizing the implications of what he said. "I-I'm sorry, my child." She said sadly as she pulled Frisk into a hug. "That you had to go through something as horrible as that." She comforted Frisk for a couple more seconds before Frisk pulled away.

"A-Anyway," Frisk stuttered, wiping his eyes and a little embarrassed at the freak-out he just had. "If we both face him together, we should win! And then if he resets again, you won't remember what happened, but I can tell you, and then we can keep on doing that until he gives up!" Frisk took a couple of breaths, trying to calm himself back down.

Frisk couldn't read the expression on Toriel's face, but it seemed to be between sadness and anger. "Of course, I will help you defeat that horrible creature," Toriel said as she looked into Frisk's determined eyes. "Why don't you go to sleep now? You've had a long day." She suggested out of the blue.

"Wait, but shouldn't I tell you more about how Flowey fights first? Then, shouldn't we have a strategy ready for tomorrow?" Frisk questioned as he was walking alongside Toriel on the way down the hall.

"My child," Toriel looked at Frisk with a smile, "You are tired, and if you're going to be fighting tomorrow, you should do it well-rested. Worry not; tomorrow, we can plan, and you can tell me everything you know."

"Ok, I guess," Frisk said as they stopped outside his door. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight." She responded and closed the door.

Toriel's hands fell limply to her sides as she stood in the hallway. Her thoughts returned to the look on the child's face when he mentioned his death. She couldn't stop imagining that same look on all of her children.

She clenched her fists and stormed off to the left.