“I thought you were dead when I found you. You’re lucky to be alive”
Frisk tried to laugh it off, but ended up groaning instead. "What just happened?" They asked, "nothing changed...did it?"
She looked down at them and scratched her cheek a bit while thinking. "Changed? Well uh...I don't know really. You sound like this isn't your first time being down here though. Do you make it a habit to fall down holes?"
More than you know, they thought to themself as they sat up. "Thanks for helping me. My name is Frisk, what's yours?"
She gave a nod. "You're welcome Frisk, my name is Himitsu, or Himi for short." She gave them a kind smile before helping them to their feet.
"It's nice to meet you, Himi," they replied, gratefully accepting the help before looking around. "Where are we, exactly?"
She took a moment to look around herself then up towards where they had fallen from. "My guess...underground or something. Hey maybe there's an some lost civilization here or ruins of one. N-not to sound morbid or anything. Ehehehe..." she pauses to rub the back of her neck a bit, a slight bead of sweat rolls down the side of her face as she looks off to the side. "A-anyways, we should explore a bit. Can't figure out where we are in just one spot after all."
Frisk nodded and looked around. It was dark , to be sure, but there was a path forward. Some sunlight filtered in through the hole at the top of the cavern, but not much else. It was getting late, and with how little light had been making it down here so far... "You're right. We should start moving," they agreed.
They did not want to be caught down here come nightfall.
Looking to the path, Himitsu started walking. She didn't know what there could have been down here, but she had a feeling it wasn't going to be a simple stroll. Part of her kept on edge, as if something was going to pop up out of nowhere at any moment.
"Any ideas on what might be down here?" She asked while they walked.
Frisk paused in their tracks, seeing what lay ahead.
"A flower, apparently," they replied, a sense of dread pooling in their stomach. Had they been here before? Everything seemed... familiar. But they could not remember.
She paused in her steps too at the sight of the flower in front of them. Why did this flower make her feel uneasy? It was just a flower right? But...why did it have a face? Flowers didn't have faces....did they?
"That....doesn't seem normal."
Frisk's head felt like it was splitting; perhaps they had hit it in the fall.
'Are you forgetting something?' A strangely familiar voice echoed through their mind. Not Himi, they realized, but someone else. Were they going crazy?
They quickly shook away the thought and approached the strange flower cautiously, being greeted almost instantaneously.
*Howdy! I'm FLOWEY. FLOWEY the FLOWER!
*Hmmm... You're new to the UNDERGROUND, aren'tcha?
*Golly, you must be so confused.
*Someone ought to teach you how things work around here!
*I guess little old me will have to do. Ready? Here we go!
Upon hearing the Flower speak, Himi instantly arched a brow. "Well huh, a talking flower. Here I thought I was the oddest thing to walk around."
She didn't feel like something was right about this flower. That something was off, but she couldn't pin what it was. Her memories were jumbled still though she would never openly admit it.
Frisk felt as though a memory was tugging at the edge of their mind; nothing they could grasp completely but there nonetheless. "Don't touch the pellets," they told Himi. They weren't sure how they knew, they just felt it.
She gives Frisk a nod and moves out of the way when the "Friendly pellets" drift towards the two of them. Something felt familiar about this to her as she moved out of the way a second time the pellets came towards them.
*Is this a joke? Are you braindead? RUN. INTO. THE. BULLETS friendliness pellets.
Frisk worked on dodging out of the way as the third round of pellets launched toward them, unsure od how their hunch had been correct.
Himitsu moved out of the way of the third round herself, her gaze fell into the flower seeing the aggravation on it before she remembered there being a ring of bullets to come next. She wanted to act on her thoughts but knew it would be better not to do so. She told herself to remain pacifist unless she had no other choice than to take aggressive actions.
Frisk tried to ignore the flower as they backed away from the pellets. By the time the pellets were mere inches away from them, Frisk was practically back to back with Himi to avoid them. They screwed their eyes shut, bracing for impact. Frisk opened their eyes once they heard a yelp, realizing that someone had come to help them.
Looking up in the place where the flower had once stood, they instead saw an eight-foot tall goat lady. Her presence was oddly soothing, and they couldn't help but smile.
Himitsu watched the Flower get knocked away by a sudden fireball before she looked at the goat lady. She blinked a few times at how soothing the air was around her. She had always seen it but never experienced it herself until now. And she knew who she was but wasn't sure how she knew who she was.
Needless to say, she visibly relaxed at the sight of the kind woman before her.
'Mom?' Frisk all but heard another voice say. The name felt right, they supposed. But they couldn't shake the feeling that this had all happened before. They instead opted to ignore the feeling, turning to speak to Himitsu. "Are you okay, Himi?" They asked, hoping she hadn't been hurt in the attack.
She looked down to Frisk and gave them a thumbs up with a smile. "I'm fine, gonna take more that a few bullets to get me outta the picture. How about you? You alright Frisk?"
She had noticed with the flower that they were good at dodging the bullets, but it didn't hurt her to be considerate. Plus she was genuinely curious.
Frisk chuckled lightly. "I'm glad to hear it," they replied with a smile in return. They glanced around at the surrounding walls, that same familiar yet foreboding feeling welling up in their Soul.
"It sounds funny, but I feel like... maybe I've been here before. But that can't be true, can it?"
She thinks for a moment as she places a finger on her chin. "Well, it might be. They say that if you feel like you've been somewhere before, a past life is trying to reach out to you. That or it's a kindred spirit thing. The spirits and souls of others finding those they knew in a previous life. So it wouldn't be the oddest thing really." Himitsu lofted a shoulder as she gave her opinion. Even if it may have sounded a little too wise or silly.
They tried to push away the nagging feeling that they were not themself and shrugged. "I guess that makes sense," Frisk replied. "I'm probably not the first person to fall down here, especially with all of the legends about this mountain." 'Far from the first,' came the voice in their mind, 'but perhaps the last.'
She nods a bit. "Hopefully you're the last one to fall down here. Well anyways, shall we see where this kind lady will take us? Or should we head out on our own? Mean if it's the two of us, we should be okay to watch each other's backs. Ya know, in case that means flower pops back up." Himitsu smiled.
They deliberated for a moment. The two of them could surely look out for one another, that was to be certain. But then again, safety in numbers. "I think we should follow her. She's good, I can tell," they replied with a nod and a smile. "Does that sound alright to you?"
Himitsu gave a nod with a smile of her own. "Sounds fine to me." There might have been an alternative motive for this but it was a pretty harmless one if she was honest. For some reason she could smell cinnamon and butterscotch on the woman and wasn't sure why.
They began to follow the woman through purple corridors as they listened to her explain puzzles to the both of them. The Ruins, as Frisk learned they were called, felt obstructive and ominous to the small child. The woman, (Toriel, they would need to remember her name), helped to ease some of that fear.
Frisk was a fairly quiet child, and certainly not a great conversationalist, but when Toriel asked them to speak to the dummy, they felt obligated to try.
She watched as they started to converse with the dummy, she had no idea what they talked about but she was pretty sure it was something that would be brought up later on. But from the look Toriel had, she was satisfied with the pacifist option.
"Okay, so if we don't fight anyone, she will eventually come help us. That makes sense, right?" They thought back to their encounter with Flowey; he hadn't even given them a turn to Fight or Act or anything. "As long as we can wait it out, she'll help us."
"That will probably be a life saver in the future I bet. Plus, I wouldn't mind uprooting that flower we encountered and putting it in a pretty but very girly pot. Cute bow and everything." Himi snickered. "If I'm honest, none of the other monsters we've encountered this far seem very hostile. Mean the shy guys just run away before we can even get a word or action out."
"You're right about that," Frisk replied. "It does make me wonder though; why all the legends about this place? I mean, so far no one has really caused us too much trouble, so why all the scary rumours about people never being seen again?" They continued walking with Himi, seemingly deep in thought. Had humans been wrong all along? Or was there more to this place than they knew?
Could it be a mixture of both?
Himitsu dwelled on this thought for a time as well. She knew there was a reason for it but couldn't remember what it was. "Hmm, hard to say I think. Maybe if we explore more we'll learn the reason why and if we don't then I guess we can just debunk those rumors."
Frisk nodded, determination burning in their heart. "I'm sure we can make it out of here. Together, right?" They asked, looking around some more. Man, this place was big. Granted, Mt. Ebott was a fairly substantial landmark, so it only made sense that this cave system would be so grand, but still. They followed Toriel deeper until she had to leave them.
"Should we wait for her? I mean, she did ask us to."
"I think this might be a test?" Himitsu said as she had squinted down the hall. "Wonder if this is a way for us to come to the conclusion that she won't always be around? And that we may be on our own for a time."
"Well, I guess she did just test our independence. Maybe the test is just to see what we do on our own?" They pondered aloud, "she did give us a phone, so we could probably call her if something happens, right?"
She nods. "Worst case we find trouble and call for help. Seems like a reasonable thing to do. Good thing her number is already in our contacts."
"Perfect, I guess let's go then!" They decided, marching to the next room.
They were startled immediately when Toriel called to make sure the two hadn't left. "Oh, this was a bad choice," they stated, now very unsure of themself.
"Too late to turn back now! We've already set our minds to explore!" Himitsu said with determined maybe persistent energy. "Sides, I'm sure she'll be proud of us for making it through places on our own." She gave frisk a bright smile.
Frisk gulped but nodded, opting to continue forward with Himi, "as long as you're sure, we'll keep going forward," they replied. Toriel had shown them both a few rooms and puzzles, but would it be enough to make it through the rest of this cave?
They were too focused on their thoughts to notice the Froggit that had cornered the two of them. "Ah, what did she say to do again? Shoot, I can't remember!"
Himi looked at the Froggit then at Frisk before suggesting "Try using that Act thingy of yours. Maybe we can compliment it or something." She really didn't want to fight this froggit, it just looked curious about them.
"Okay, let's try that then," they nodded, opting to try and compliment the Froggit in front of them. "Umm hey! You're a really great jumper!" They tried.
'The Froggit didn't understand what you said, but was flattered anyway.'
Frisk looked back to the Froggit and, sure enough, it seemed to be blushing? They would've found it adorable, had it not then jumped at them immediately. Startled by this response, Frisk took a bit of damage, but the Froggit seemed content now.
Hovering over their 'SPARE' option, the battle ended.
"Okay, that was wild."
Himitsu was glad that it worked out. Though she did jump herself when the Froggit lunged towards them. She was also sad that Frisk had gotten hurt.
"See we got this. Though we should still be careful too...or find snacks to stock pile...are there any snacks in this cave actually?" She wandered the last bit to herself for a moment.
"Couldn't hurt to look around, I guess," Frisk shrugged, dusting themself off as they noticed a room to the north. "Maybe we'll find something in there?" They suggested, already heading for the room ahead.
She nods and follows them to the north room. When they entered, she saw the bowl of candy and the sign that read "Take one". She debates on this but took one candy regardless.
Frisk took one and stuffed it haphazardly into their pocket, wondering if the old saying about taking candy from strangers applied to strange places as well.
When they exited back to the previous room, they decided to finally take a closer look at the odd glowing light they'd seen previously. They approached cautiously and reached a hand toward it. Suddenly, they could feel their previous wound all but disappear as Determination flooded through them.
"Whoa...that was really weird."
Himitsu looked at the odd light herself but didn't poke it. Something about it had reminded her of something else and caused her to swear(?) for a moment. Soon enough she was fine and gave a nod. "Well that light seems to heal your injuries at least. So that's good."
"Are you okay?" They asked, concerned for their friend's wellbeing. "That looked like it hurt," Frisk gave her a quick look-over, but unable to find anything. "Maybe you shouldn't touch those, we don't really know what they are..."
Giving a wave of a dismissive hand, Himitsu walked past the star. "I'll be alright Frisk. I'm a tough gal. But we should keep moving."
"Okay, if you insist," they replied, still a bit worried about their friend. "Let's keep going then. Maybe we'll find an exit."
Himitsu gave a nod and walked with them further into the caves. She had realized that it was this large, nor did she realize that a random veggitoid would pop up in front of them and she may or may not have tripped over it in the process. Causing her to lose a point or two of HP.
"Gah, I know they say carrots are good for the eyes, but I guess they're not good for the feet." She chuckled a bit at her corny joke.
"Are you okay?!" They asked immediately, fearful for her health as they ACTED on the Vegetoid.
"Uhh I don't know what to do! Maybe dinner? Like I'm asking it out? I don't know!"
Himi looked at her health bar and kept calm before she gave a nod to them. "Yes I'm fine. And seeing what this monster is, Dinner sounds good. I wouldn't mind setting some greens really. Plus, I don't think this would count as a date. Mean there's probably a manual on the topic, but this doesn't seem like something that would be in there..."
Frisk nodded and selected the "Dinner option," immediately being greeted by an "Eat Your Greens" message. They were confused at first, dodging as best they could from the white veggie-bullets that surrounded them; until they saw a green vegetable amongst the others. Without thinking much, they grabbed it, and felt the battle shift.
Apparently, touching the green bullet had been enough, as the Vegetoid was now ready to spare. "Good call," they told Himi. "Thanks for that."
She gave a thumbs up as she dodged into a green veggie herself. Now feeling better, Himitsu relaxes while stretching her arms above her head. "You're welcome. It's always nice to get a bit of green magic. Though a little risky with the white attacks sometimes."
"Ready to continue forward?" They asked, still quite nervous themself; they had barely moved a room away from where Toriel had left the two of them, and they'd already been in two fights.
"Do you think the rest of this cave will be like this?"
