Toriel’s house looked pretty normal from the outside. It was one of the few places that didn’t have a lot of dust. Good sign so far. There was a dead tree with about a million leaves around it. Again, normal. We’re two for two with a decent looking place to stay. Now they just had to look inside. The four walked up to the house anxiously, they could hear people inside. 

“I… have to go check on something, stay here my child.” The voice sounded like Toriel. At least she’s alive, and same with the kid too, by the sound of things. They heard footsteps head into the front room, followed by another, smaller set following them. The group walked inside. Cozy, three out of three. There was a staircase that was most likely the one Toriel went down since the kid was just down it when they came in. deciding to follow them, they could hear Toriel telling the kid to go back upstairs. They eventually reached a long hallway, with Toriel and the kid at the other end. Toriel kept telling them to go back upstairs since the underground was dangerous for a child. Fair enough, honestly. Monsters probably weren’t too friendly to humans even before the serial killer that seems to have popped up… hours ago… 

“Wait…” I said, concerned about growing in his voice. “didn’t the serial killer monster pop up a few hours ago? Justin, could you please check the kids LV?” 

Justin’s eyes glowed yellow for a moment. “Um… by the looks of things it’s… LV 3? Why?” 

My eyes widened as the kid pulled out what looked like a knife. “Because I just figured out who’s been killing the monsters. It wasn’t a homicide.” I broke into a sprint, hoping I could interfere with what I knew would happen. It felt like I was running through molasses, but I kept moving. I couldn’t let another person get killed. The kid brought up the arm with the knife. I wouldn’t make it, I pushed myself harder and something… weird happened. I saw Toriel’s soul, a white, upside down heart. A red energy flowed between me and her, like I was soul tapping her, but that was weird. It was normally purple. No time. I was almost there. I pulled out my soul weapon, a purple pencil, and… 

The kid… landed… their hit… in a few seconds, Toriel was nothing but more dust in the room and then, I felt myself filled with rage. And then, I took my shot. As I swung my purple pencil, a wave of purple energy flew at the kid, and I saw them turn around just fast enough for me to see their face. At first they looked neutral, and distant. almost bored to an extent. But when they saw me, they looked excited. I think they noticed me before my attack, and even then, they looked ecstatic at my presence as my attack cut them in half. Like i was some exciting new toy for them to play with. Then for some reason, they just… disappeared. The others finally caught up. “What the hell!” shouted Izzy. “So that kid was the one who killed the monsters?” 

“Looks like it.” said justin. “So, what now? Should we… hold a funeral or something for Toriel? Maybe the other monsters too?” I was about to agree when I got this weird headache and then, the dust that had come from Toriel had disappeared. I turned around and… there Toriel was, looking just as confused as us. 

“Children? Is this the afterlife? Did that Human kill you too?” she asked, concerned. I tried to calm her down. 

“No, I killed it with magic. Then their body just… vanished, I got a headache, and you came back. Is that normal for monsters?” I questioned. 

“No. it is not at all normal.” Toriel replied. Then the five of them heard footsteps. They turned around to see the kid, still in one piece. 

“What the… how.” said Bryson. I checked their soul and… weird. I’ve only seen a red soul in one book. But that was a myth. No way a determination soul was real. But… that would kind of explain how the kid was back. Then why could they still remember? RESETing was supposed to only allow the determination soul to remember. Wait… I looked at my soul, as usual, it was purple, the color of perseverance. But there was also a bit of crimson, the supposed color of Determination. It didn’t make much sense, but… could I have enough to rival them? 

“JAKE!” Justin's voice snapped me back to reality. It was them against the genocidal child. But… What was the point? We couldn’t just kill them. They would come back. But our backs are against a literal wall right now. Then I remembered something Jacky once told me about animal behaviors. Apex predators will only pick a fight if it's worth it. You can’t hunt if you're hurt, and you can’t heal if you don’t eat. But large prey? They don’t care. If against a wall, they WILL fight. They may die, but they’ll take you down with them. Right now, they were in a similar position. I pulled out my pencil, and slashed over and over. The kid dodged the first hit, but got shredded by the next ones. “Woah!” 

“We need to move.” I said. “It doesn’t matter how many times we kill them. They’ll just come back.” Toriel nodded and opened the door behind us. We all bolted and ran through it. We wound up in some snowy forest. MAN did i wish i dressed warmer. I was in a freaking T-shirt and gym shorts. Luckily Toriel made a fire using magic to keep us all from freezing. We started walking when we heard a branch snap and we ran for the gate. We reached it when we heard a voice from behind us, deep and slightly intimidating. 

“h u m a n ’s… don’t you know how to greet a new pal? Turn around, and shake my hand.” I saw him hold out his hand, and shook it before hearing a fart, followed by who I assumed to be bryson chuckling. “heh, ol’ whoopie cushion in the hand trick. always funny.” The guy who snuck up on us was a skeleton, by the looks of it. He was wearing a blue jacket, shorts, and white slippers. He sounded sorta like the starfish from that one children's show. I’ll admit, this was honestly the weirdest moment so far, immortal murderous child included. “names sans. sans the skeleton. Nice to meet you kids.” he looked at Toriel. “you too, lady.” 

Toriel looked confused. “Are you the one who I often joke with from behind that door?” Apparently Toriel and this Sans guy told each other knock knock jokes from opposite sides of the door a lot. Explains how she didn’t go crazy from isolation. But I needed to get us to focus. 

“Look, Sans. We don’t have time for this. Somebody just wiped out every monster in The Ruins! And if we don’t stop them, they’ll probably kill everyone else too.” I tried the thing I did with Toriel, and it worked. I could see his soul, as crimson strands reached from mine to his. I then noticed the kid coming through the door, and proceeded to kill it with another group of waves. Sans looked reasonably shocked before everything reset again. “We need to get help. I can’t one shot them forever. They’ll learn eventually.” Sans looked worried. 

“alright, my bro should be able to help. he's a royal guard in training, y’know. c’mon, i’ll take ya to him." We walked past the gate, since the bars were too far apart to stop us. Apparently Sans’ brother made it, which wasn’t very confidence boosting, but okay. Suddenly, another skeleton, this one being around Toriel’s height, while Sans was about as tall as us. He was dressed in what looked like actual armor. Makes sense, given what he’s training to be. 

“SANS! IT HAS BEEN OVER A WEEK AND… WHO DO YOU HAVE THERE?” he asked, confused. 

“hey, paps. these guys need your help. apparently someone’s dusted every monster where they came from and is starting to come to snowdin.” “Paps” hesitated for a second. 

“SANS, ARE THEY… HUMANS?” He looked excited at the human part. If “Paps” had eyes, they’d be beaming, for sure. 

“Yeah.” i said before being drowned out by him rambling about how “HE IS THE GREAT PAPYRUS,” and, “HE WILL CAPTURE US, AND JOIN THE ROYAL GUARD, THUS BECOMING INCREDIBLY POPULAR!” and was about to run off before I stopped him. “Um, sorry, can we handle the whole extinction of your people thing before all of that?” causing him to turn around before announcing something. 

“FAIR POINT, I’LL CALL UNDYNE, TELL HER ABOUT THE PROBLEM BEFORE ASKING HER TO MEET US IN SNOWDIN! NYEH HEH HEH!” he laughed. I swear, he sounded like the bad guy in this one old TV-show I saw once that eventually became a meme format. “THIS WAY, BROTHER, HUMANS AND…” he paused, looking at Toriel. “I DO NOT BELIEVE I GOT YOUR NAME, FEMALE ASGORE!” 

“Ah!” said Toriel. “I am Toriel, guardian of the ruins the humans always fall into.” 

“PLEASURE TO MEET YOU TORIEL, NOW! TO SNOWDIN!” announced Papyrus, creating a row of sky-blue bones as we left. As we walked, he proceeded to call “Undyne”, who was apparently the head of the royal guard, and tell her about the serial killer we trapped in the ruins, and asking her to meet in Snowdin town, which is where these guys live. After that, we kept walking to the meeting place while talking while I soul tapped papyrus to keep his magic from disappearing and unleashing the genocider. I quickly learned that Papyrus was an absolute DORK, like us, and while he may seem clueless and… typically is (we had to explain that dates are for romantic relationships, and not all relationships.), he’s actually pretty cool. I also learned why the royal guard was going to capture us, which is to break the barrier. Eventually we reached their house with Undyne arriving a few minutes later.