8Sorry for the long wait! Finals came up, and I had other stories to update. And then I got a bit of writer's block for this story… But now I'm back for another chapter!
*Took you long enough.
Ah. You're back.
*Of course I'm back. You took two months to get back to this story.
I don't suppose you'd give me a review? Every input counts in my book.
*Most of them were sickly sweet. The one with the evil humans is interesting, but not my favorite.
Really? Interesting…
*What's that supposed to mean?
Nothing. Continue?
*My favorite character is the time traveler—the Pikachu. Unlike his amnesiac counterpart that didn't know any better, he knows what the cost is and still gets stuff done, without needing to just react to the situation—not bad for a human.
You speak as if you're not human too.
*Need I remind you that I HATE humans?
Not really. Now, on with the story.
Do-nut Disturb!
Toby padded alongside the human to the next room of the Ruins. A small pile of leaves had gathered in the short corridor between the room's halves. He paused along with them and the duo tilted their heads at the sight before them.
A cylindrical figure with a round head and a flat bottom with curved ridges lay on the leaves. They looked like a larger Whimsun except without the limbs or other defining features. Suffice to say, the slumbering figure looked like a ghost.
Toby moved forward and sniffed at the ghost, not really familiar with them. They smelled like tears.
The ghost, for their part just continued sleeping.
"zzzzzzzzzzzzzz… zzzzzzzzzzzzzz… zzzzzzzzzz… (are they gone yet?) zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…"
The puppy moved forward and looked closer at the figure. After a bit, they seemed to think of something and pouted.
"Excuse me, I know you're awake," they said. "Can you please move?"
"…zzzzzzzzzzzzzz…"
"Don't worry, puppy!" Toby reassured. "Ghosts are incorporeal, so we can just walk straight through."
"That's rude," the human pouted. Then they turned back to the "slumbering" ghost.
*(This ghost keeps saying "z" out loud repeatedly, pretending to be asleep.)
*Move it with force?
Frisk sighed as the voice didn't offer any more information or options than that. At the very least, they had stopped Toby from just passing through the ghost.
The white dog let out a puzzled groan that translated as "Hmm…" Then he started panting and barking, "Ah! I know! Puppy, there's a way for us to go around this crying ghost."
Before Frisk could ask how, Toby jumped and they only saw white fur before floating in a white void with a few bones, some dog treats and a strange myriad of items. The latter included but was not limited to fried tennis balls, a lettuce shaped like a dog's head (1) and literal garbage.
*Toby absorbed you.
*Welcome to the Dog Dimension.
They blinked as the voice offered that courtesy and floated aimlessly for a few seconds, a familiar collar appearing next to them. Then, when the collar disappeared again, Frisk felt a force pulling them before feeling fur all over their body and popping up to land on Toby's back again.
"All done!" Toby helpfully informed.
The human blinked before looking around the room and noticing they had indeed moved to the other half of the room. Frisk examined their sweater and saw that white fur stuck to their body now. They brushed it off of their clothes and hair, the fuzz seeming to coalesce together into a lump in their hand.
*You got the Dog Residue.
Confused at the voice's description for Toby's fur, Frisk put the ball back in their left pocket, keeping it away from the Monster Candy in their right one.
"Which way should we go, puppy?"
Frisk looked around and pointed straight ahead. Toby padded along and they arrived in a single room with no way out aside from the entrance. A sign stood in front of two spider webs, marking the only features of the room.
Curious, the human hopped off of their steed's back and looked at the hieroglyphs of the sign, unable to make much sense of them. It was the first time they'd tried reading a sign, since Toriel and Toby had led them through the puzzles so far. It had never occurred to them that monsters would have their own writing system.
*Spider Bake Sale.
*All proceeds go to real spiders.
'Okay,' Frisk thought. 'So the voice in my head knows how to read these.'
Still, while that unnerved them slightly, they were actually quite hungry and a piece of candy didn't seem as filling as a donut. They walked up to the smaller web to see if they could find someone to help them and the voice spoke up again.
*Leave 7G in the web?
'"G"? Is that gold?' When the voice didn't respond, Frisk shrugged and counted out 7 gold pieces from their back pocket and carefully stuck each one in the small web, careful not to tear any strands.
They took a step back as spiders emerged from a small crack below the web and plucked the currency from the silk before returning to the wall. After that, three spiders lowered down from above on silk strands, the trio holding a purple donut. Bemused, and somewhat fascinated, the human took the donut and the two lower spiders returned up to the ceiling while the third one held up a sign in the same hieroglyphs as the advertisement.
*Thank you for your patronage! ::)
Realizing that the four-eyed smiley face was meant to be a smiling spider, Frisk nodded in response. The spider then put the sign away… somehow and went back up its line into a slightly larger hole in the wall towards the ceiling.
While Frisk ate the treat that their internal voice identified as a Spider Donut, Toby pulled a bone out of his fur and gnawed on it.
After finishing, Frisk noticed that the confection had not only completely removed their hunger, but had healed the light fatigue they felt from the few hits they had taken. Sure enough, when they glanced at their HP bar, it was full again.
*HP ▫▫▫▫ 20/20
'So monster food heals as well as feeding you,' they thought. 'I'll buy another one in case I get hurt later.'
They did just that while Toby finished off his bone.
After the duo left, They encountered a room with three Froggits, each having helpful information about various aspects of the interface, once the voice translated their ribbits—although two of them rambled about X and F4 "buttons" that Frisk couldn't see anywhere around. A hidden part of the interface, perhaps?
As the human made to leave, a cyclopean bipedal monster approached cautiously, regarding Frisk and Toby cautiously as the world went black and white and Frisk's SOUL appeared.
*Loox drew near!
Frisk got an idea and hit ACT to Check the new monster, not having seen use for that as they didn't know anything about any of the other monsters. But the voice could read the letters and translate the Froggits, so they probably know a lot about other monsters.
*Check
*LOOX – ATK 6 DEF 6
*Don't pick on him.
*Family name: Eyewalker
"Don't worry, monster who smells like eye drops!" Toby reassured, knowing what to do already. "The puppy is nice and won't pick on you."
"Finally someone gets it," the monster said in a relieved tone as circles of energy shot from his eye and bounced around the room. But none of them came near Frisk or Toby.
After that, Frisk pressed the MERCY button.
*Spare
Loox walked off, seeming more at peace than before and Frisk smiled before scratching Toby behind the ears, much to the dog's delight.
"Thank you for helping, Toby," they said.
Toby wagged his tail and walked alongside the human as they continued on to the next room.
No Napstablook battle, sorry! By Toby's logic, since Frisk wouldn't walk through the ghost, he carried them through the wall.
*Logic? More like lack of it.
He means well.
*So did that traitor, and look where it got him and me. Meaning well doesn't matter if it just lands you in more trouble. Both the time traveler and his friend each made a mistake that nearly ruined everything because they wanted to protect or impress someone else.
Well, that's actually a halfway decent argument. In any case, his actions just reflect his character. Some people run by logic, others by emotion, a few find a medium, but either side can take over at any given time.
*If my plan had gone through, the monsters would've been freed a long time ago.
Maybe they would've, but there's no point arguing over what may or may not have been best. That's the end of the chapter.
*You're forgetting something.
Forgetting...? Oh, right!
Notes:
1. Of the several Dog Salad items, the only one without a definitive identity is said to "taste yappy", thus the dog head-shaped lettuce.
*See you in another two months!
Quit it. See you when I see you.
-AJ203