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A man stood in the depths of the alley, holding a knife in his hand.
Frisk paused. At first they thought they might be mistaken—surely if they looked again it would be nothing more than a lighter or a flashlight—but no, of course they weren't. Frisk was very good at recognizing knives; that wasn't the sort of mistake they'd ever make.
It was a cheap-looking knife with a plastic handle, probably meant for chopping vegetables or something equally silly. (Magic was the way to go for anything and everything cooking-related; Toriel's homemade dishes were proof enough of that.) The man in the alley had obviously been finding a more unique use for it, though, if the dark blood dripping from the blade and the still form curled at his feet were any indication.
Still alive, probably. It was harder to tell with people than with monsters, but they thought they could see a hint of movement.
Jeez, Frisk thought. I just wanted to buy some milk.
The man hadn't spotted them yet. It wasn't too late to turn around and leave. No one would ever have to know what they'd seen.
But Frisk would know. That was the problem with saving things—once you started, you wanted to do it all the time. It was the worst sort of bad habit, and Frisk hadn't quite figured out how to break it yet.
Fine, Frisk thought, a little grumpily. Already, the sight of the attack was flooding their brain with adrenaline and something more. They took in every single detail—the deep shadows, the man's upraised hand, the cement slick with water and oil and something more, the half-full trash bags and loose garbage scattered across the entrance of the alley—and committed them to some deep part of their memory. Remember this.
Frisk stepped into the alley.
“M-mister?” They opened their arms, looking as small and innocent and unarmed as they could manage. “W-what are you doing?”
The man jumped, sucking in a panicked breath as he turned towards Frisk. “What—?”
Frisk paused, lingering just out of arms' reach. Look at me. Aren't I so helpless? Aren't I so tiny? Plenty of adults could work up the anger to hurt other adults. Fewer were willing to lash out at strange kids—physically, at least. There was always an extra sense of danger to the act.
(Frisk had always found that a bit hypocritical, personally. The underground had been much better that way; at least some of the opponents they'd found there had been willing to look at their power rather than their size.)
The man blinked, looking confused. The hand holding the knife drifted back down towards his side. “Kid? What are you doing here?”
The thing—the person—at his feet made a small, panicked noise. It might have been an attempt to say something or just a groan of pain. Frisk couldn't quite tell.
“I saw…” Frisk trailed off, looking down at the injured body with eyes stretched wide. “I saw you were doing something that wasn't nice. You shouldn't do that.” What was it that Kid had always been so fond of saying? Oh, right. “Y-you'd better stop r-right where you are!”
The man took a shaking half-step towards Frisk, knife held loosely in his slack palm. “Listen, kid.” His voice was hoarse. It trembled as he spoke. “You should go home, okay?”
“I'll go home if you stop.” Frisk chanced another small step forward. Just a bit closer and they'd be able to grab the knife from his hands…
Honestly, adults always ended up being so predictable. A hint of tears, a babyish voice, and suddenly even the most determined killer might end up having a crisis of conscience. It was kinda weird, really.
“Yeah.” The man swallowed. “Yeah, you're right.” He crouched down, looking at Frisk. “I know I should.”
“I'm glad.” Frisk took another step closer, reaching out for the knife—
“But you know what?” Too late they saw the gleam in his eyes, the hint of a smile that pulled at the corner of his mouth. “I don't really want to.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid! How could they have gotten so cocky? Frisk jumped backwards, trying to twist out of the way of the blood-splattered knife, but in an alley this narrow there was nowhere to maneuver.
The knife sank into their chest with a familiar sort of wet sound. Frisk gurgled, grasping weakly at the spot where the handle protruded from their chest. Already their vision was going dark; spots swam in front of their eyes as their fingers went cold.
Deep inside, their soul shook and shuddered. The last thing they felt was it bursting into fragmented shards as their blood dripped onto the weathered concrete.
---
“You jerk!” shrieked Frisk.
The man in the alley yelped, jumping backwards at the noise. “Who are you?” he snapped, his face contorting into a vicious snarl. “What the hell do you think you're doing here?”
How dare this second-rate loser take advantage of a heartfelt mercy strategy? That was Frisk's move, patented and perfected, and here some two-bit alleyway stabber with no style or strategy at all thought he could rip it off just like that.
He hadn't even made a proper joke during it. I don't really want to. Was that the best he could come up with? He sounded like a whiny little kid. Was that his idea of dramatic timing?
Frisk dashed into the alley. They weren't quite sure whether they were smiling or scowling, but either way their expression was enough to force the man backwards a step.
Idiot, Frisk thought happily. In this tight a space, giving any ground at all was like handing it to your opponent on a platter.
The only question was what to do with it. Frisk wasn't very good at disarming enemies—it was a hard skill to practice when most of the folks you fought used weapons made of magical energy—and there was no chance they'd be able to be able to break the death grip the man had on his knife with their pitiful muscles.
A shape caught their eye as they scanned the scattered trash. That would do.
Frisk darted in close, passing within a hair's breadth of the man's hands as they reached for their treasure, then just as quickly hopped back to a safer distance.
“Ugh,” Frisk said, looking down at their new weapon. It had looked so much more threatening from a distance.
It was a thin length of PVC pipe, three or four feet long and so light it was hard to keep a grip on. Barely more effective than a stick, really—Frisk thought back fondly to their own rusted dagger (or, even better, that crimson-gleaming knife they'd held once upon a time)—but they'd done more with less before.
This would work just fine.
The man snorted. “You gonna beat me up with that thing, kid?”
“Wow, mister! How did you guess?”
Before he had a chance to say anything more, they jumped forward once more. After so many battles against monsters, dodging ghostly fire and monstrous beasts and spears that crackled with energy, this was almost too easy. The man's weapon gave him terrible range and without magic he had no way to strike at them for a distance.
He was a sitting duck. Frisk lashed their pipe towards his ankles, then up at his head; each time he bent to protect some part of his body he left something else exposed. Any other human might not have noticed the tiny openings, but to Frisk they were like beacons shining out a message across the shadowed alley: I'm weak. I'm off-kilter. Attack me here.
Friendship, pacifism, redemption—those things were difficult. Frisk had worked a very long time to figure those out. (In some ways, they were still trying to get them right.) Fighting, though… fighting was easy. It was nstinct more than conscious thought that guided them back and forth across the dirty concrete.
The blows they landed were pathetically weak. Without any LOVE to back it up, it was all their thin arms could do to leave a bruise. But the attacks added up. Each glancing blow meant another mark on the man's body, each stinging swipe wore him down just a little bit more.
Before long, Frisk had the man pressed back up against the wall of the alley. His breaths came in quick shallow gasps and a dark sort of animalistic fear burned in his eyes. Blood poured from his nose—a lucky hit on Frisk's part—and shallow scrapes covered his arms and shoulders.
He knew he was losing. They could see it in the tight panicked lines of his face.
Frisk had sworn off pointless cruelty. They'd made a promise to themselves not to murder anyone anymore. But that didn't mean they couldn't enjoy watching him squirm.
“Well?” Frisk asked, spreading their arms wide. “Is that all you've got? All the LOVE in the world won't do you an ounce of good if you can't hit your opponent, you know.”
They'd learned that particular lesson the hard way.
“What are you?” the man gasped out.
Frisk shrugged. “I'm really just a kid.”
Maybe they were lying. Maybe not. Even they weren't quite sure anymore. They'd died a thousand times and ended the lives of ten thousand others. They'd fought until they couldn't feel anything anymore and then kept fighting until suddenly they felt altogether too much. They saved people they'd once thought couldn't be saved—Toriel, Asgore, Flowey. Themself. After all that, could they really be considered a kid?
Ugh. Frisk shook the thought off. They hadn't come out here to get all sentimental.
They grinned at the man. “If you're finally ready to surrender, I'm willing to accept it. I'm really good at mercy these days.” Lucky for him.
The man's arms shook. His eyes darted back and forth. His grasp on the knife began to loosen.
Just then, Frisk's phone started to ring.
“Huh?” They looked down automatically, one hand drifting towards their pocket by (stupid) instinct alone.
Who could be calling—
Frisk looked up at the sound of heavy footsteps, just in time to take a not-yet-relinquished knife between the ribs. A familiar cold heat began to spread through their body. They staggered sideways.
“Okay,” they said, voice wavering as the world spun around them, “Fair enough. That one was… my fau...”
They didn't get to finish their sentence.
---
The next time around, Frisk was ready for the phone call. When a familiar tune (the theme of the Mew Mew Kissy Cutie OVA, helpfully downloaded for them by Alphys) started to echo through the alley, they thrust their pipe hand out towards the man and gave him their best horror-movie-villain grin.
“If you move even an inch, I will not be happy. Okay?”
The man's Adam's apple bobbed as he gulped. His feet stayed planted firmly on the other end of the alley.
Satisfied, Frisk slipped their phone out of their pocket. He was slow enough that they could probably dodge him even if he did try something, now that they knew to be on the lookout for it, but even so a little extra encouragement never hurt.
The noise cut off abruptly as they hit accept call. “Hi, Sans!”
“Kid!” Sans sounded… well, not panicked, exactly—it took a lot to get him to actually emote that much—but definitely not happy. “What the he…ck are you doing out there?”
Oh no. Sudden realization hit Frisk with all the force of a magically-propelled femur. They'd gotten so caught up in the fight—they hadn't even stopped to think—
Sans had to be so mad.
“It's not like that!” they blurted out. “I'm not resetting on purpose or anything, I just keep getting stabbed—”
I just keep getting stabbed. Like it was inevitable, like they couldn't have avoided it if they'd just been a little more careful. Their cheeks burned with embarrassment. Why did they have to be so bad at remembering that their resets affected other people too?
They never used to care; even now, thinking of others still came slowly to them. They wanted to take care of their friends, and instead they just kept messing things up.
“Stabbed?” Sans asked. If anything, he sounded more upset now.
“Yeah, but it's okay, they're mostly clean cuts. It never hurts too bad.” Sans himself had dished out a lot more pain, back in the day.
“Frisk, where are you? What's going on?”
“Um...” They looked around they alley for a moment. “I'm next to that one restaurant with the statue of a weird horse outside, you know the one. I found this guy, I think he got way too caught up in a barfight or maybe a mugging went wrong or something—”
“Shut up!” the man snarled, suddenly panicked, and lashed out wildly with his knife.
“Whoa, hey now”—Frisk jumped backwards, easily avoiding the swing, then landed a quick warning blow with their pipe—“that's not going to work.”
“What?” Sans asked. “No, never mind, stay there.”
Not like I could leave, Frisk wanted to answer, but the line went dead before they could open their mouth.
“Huh,” they said, staring at the phone. Normally they got pretty good service on surface-to-surface calls.
“You little brat! Now look what you've done!” Spittle flew from the man's mouth as he spoke. He looked almost possessed, more like a beast than a human being. “You're gonna tell me who you called, and then...” He smiled in what he probably assumed was a threatening way. Mostly, though, it made him look a bit ill.
“Just a friend of mine, that's all.” Frisk shrugged.
“Not good enough, kid.” He moved back and forth as he spoke, shifting from foot to foot with a restless energy. Frisk wasn't sure if he was trying to distract them from calling the police, or if it simply hadn't occurred to him that they were able to.
(Not that Frisk would, of course. At least, not yet; they weren't the sort of person to let other people end their fights for them. But the man certainly didn't have to know that.)
A blue light flickered somewhere above them, casting long shadows through the darkened alley. The glow of street lamp turning on, maybe, or else the reflected glare from the headlights of a car turning down some other road. Or maybe—
Frisk smiled. “Why do you want to know so bad? Do you have a bone to pick with him?”
“You better believe I do, kid—agh!”
The man fell to the ground with a sudden shriek of pain as thirty-five pounds of very unhappy skeleton dropped onto his shoulders from two stories up. His head smacked against the pavement and his eyes rolled up into his head.
There was a long moment of silence. Frisk and Sans stared at each other.
“If you killed him,” Frisk said finally, “I'm telling Mom.”
Honestly, sometimes they wished he would kill someone. His HP was so, so low, and he refused to do anything at all that might help to raise it no matter how much they or Papyrus or even Toriel cajoled him. Frisk could spend hours just thinking of all the ways a fragile monster like him could get killed out in this big scary world.
It would be pretty hypocritical of him, though, and probably wouldn't earn the monsters any points with the local government. Plus, none of them had ever hashed out just how the courts would work in a case of interspecies violence. Frisk did not feel like sitting down and diplomacy-ing that one out. All together, it was probably a good thing he'd only ever tried to murder them.
“He's not dead. He's just a little, uh, consciousness-impaired at the moment.” Sans looked over at the knife, now lying on the pavement a few feet from the man's slack hand, and something in his immobile face shifted and darkened. “And a bit conscience-impaired, apparently.”
“Eh, I don't think his LOVE's that high. He only really managed to hurt me when I let my guard down.”
(They knew what overwhelming LOVE felt like. Some nights they still dreamed about that intoxicating rush of power, that feeling that guided them ever forward as they made their way through the caverns of the underground. Every fight had brought a new rush of confidence and joy; they'd been safe in the knowledge that they never had to feel helpless again.
They always woke up in a cold sweat after those dreams.)
Sans' eyes flickered and dimmed in what Frisk had come to recognize as skepticism. If he had eyebrows, he'd certainly be raising one.
“Hey, I can too let my guard down!” Frisk protested. “I'm totally gullible.”
“I think most people would use the word innocent.”
“Innocent. Yeah, that's right, that's what it is.”
Sans chuckled. He always seemed to appreciate Frisk's jokes, even the darker ones. They still weren't sure if that meant they were clever, or if his standards were just really low. Even back then, in the hall that shimmered with gold, he'd always found a moment to laugh.
No. Frisk blinked and shook their head, willing away the memories. They'd promised themself that they wouldn't think about that anymore. Fighting in this little alley had dredged up all sort of weird thoughts.
They turned their gaze to the person still lying in the corner of the alley. Now that they weren't so focused on the battle, they could make out a hint of brown hair streaked with gray and a wispy beard curling off his chin. “We should help this guy out. I'm not sure how long he's been here, but I think he's hurt pretty bad.”
“All right,” Sans said, running a tired hand across his face. “You call emergency services and I'll tie this guy up.”
They sighed. “Can't you call?” Emergency services always asked so many questions. Frisk had grown tired of dealing with them by the time they were six.
Sans irises rolled in the empty void of their sockets. “You know what happens when I try to call.”
Unlike many of the monsters, Sans couldn't pass for human even over the phone—his jawbone clicked and scraped against itself when he talked. Frisk had always thought it sounded kinda cute, but apparently a lot of people found it creepy.
“All right, fine,” thye said, more out of guilt than anything else. Sans looked almost impossibly tired, and they didn't want to stress him out further. It must have been terrifying to be suddenly thrown backwards without any reason why.
They were both reliving things they'd rather forget tonight, it seemed.
Frisk dialed, then switched back into their best gullible innocent child routine for the actual call. There was a man lying hurt in an alley. No, they didn't know how badly—he just looked he really felt bad. No, he wasn't talking. Yes, they'd seen something weird; another man had been there with a knife. Luckily their adult friend had tackled him (from thirty feet up, Frisk muttered under their breath) and made him drop his weapon. Yes, they could give the address.
“Okay,” Frisk said once they hung up, “an ambulance is coming.”
“Good,” Sans said.
Together, they sat and waited for everyone to arrive.
---
The next few hours were a blur of flashing lights and ambulance rides. Frisk hadn't expected to get away easily, but it was still exhausting.
First, the paramedics had panicked at the sight of a blood-splattered child; Frisk's reassurances (no, it's not my blood! Promise!) had been surprisingly unhelpful. Then, once the police had shown up and realized a monster was on scene, things had gotten really fun.
Sometimes, Frisk really wanted to strangle people. The policemen had all acted like Sans wouldn't be able to hear their suspicious whispers just because he didn't have any ears.
Eventually, the paramedics had won out; Frisk and Sans would be taken to the hospital to be looked at rather than shuttled straight down to the police department to give witness statements (and, Frisk assumed, get grilled harder than a hamburger at Grillby's).
They were still there now: Frisk was half-asleep in a hard-backed plastic chair and Sans was sitting on the edge of a nearby hospital bed, staring up at the ceiling tiles.
“So, another stroke of heroism, huh?” Sans said, a touch sleepily. “Maybe this time they'll give you a medal.”
No one had actually said anything to them about it yet, but from the sound of the nurses' whispers the man they'd brought down was a pretty big deal; it wasn't his first time mugging people. Frisk was glad the person they'd rescued was going to be okay (right as rain, the nurse had added in an overly-cheerful voice, but she didn't look like she was purposefully lying to them so they thought it was okay to trust her), but it was a distant sort of happiness. They felt more dazed than anything.
“Mom's going to be so upset,” Frisk groaned. “How long have we been here? Four hours? Five? I didn't even make it to the grocery store. We're not going to be able to eat cereal tomorrow and it's all my fault.”
“I think she'll probably forgive you for that one, kiddo.” He drummed his fingers against the edge of the bed. “Gotta admit, though, I'm getting pretty tired too.”
“Shocker.”
He snorted out a laugh at that.
“We could take a shortcut, maybe?” Frisk asked hopefully, glancing over at Sans.
“Heh. Nice try, but no way. I don't want them following me home and questioning me more. What a hassle that would be.”
“Eh.” Frisk slumped in their seat. “Fair enough.”
For a moment, everything between them was quiet.
“Frisk?” Sans asked quietly. He very carefully wasn't looking at them—his gaze was focused on the ceiling as though it were the most fascinating thing in the world.
“Yeah?”
“Why did you stop?”
Frisk blinked. Their mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. They wanted desperately to believe they didn't know what he was talking about. They opened their mouth to do just that; Sans would play along, he wouldn't want to press it.
But no. He deserved an answer.
Dust on their hands, a knife in their grasp, they entered that massive shining hall and someone was waiting there for them. No one suspicious, no one important, just a coward without even the slightest hint of power.
Except he threw out an arm and the world tilted with him and for the first time in a long time Frisk felt PAIN—
“I… couldn't beat you,” Frisk said, staring down at their hands. “I tried and I tried and I tried, but no matter what I did you cut me down. I got so frustrated.”
They remembered that well; they could still conjure up the ghost of that anger if they concentrated. Even now, it was strong enough to make their heart race and their pulse jump wildly.
“And after a while, I got sick of losing. I thought that if I went back and tried it all again, I could find some kind of weakness. And, well...” They shrugged. “You know how that went.”
“Heh.” Sans glanced over at them, irises shimmering sky blue in the low light. “You really never beat me?”
Frisk's fingers tightened around the arms of the chair. “Not even once.”
“Well,” he said. “That's pretty flattering, I guess.” His sockets dimmed back down into their usual white. He tilted his head towards them in a way that made it look like he was smiling.
“You're too easy to please,” Frisk said with a shaky grin.
“Tell Papyus that, wouldja? I think he's talked himself into trying to give me cooking lessons again. Says I don't appreciate his spaghetti enough.”
“In fairness, you did shove a raw tomato into a box of noodles and claim it was 'basically the same thing'.”
“Someday they'll appreciate my culinary genius.”
Frisk giggled to themself as they looked back down at their chair. Somehow, they doubted the inventor of recipes like 'The Potato and Peanut Sandwich' and 'Ketchup on Raw Toast' was ever going to get his own cooking show.
After that, they didn't talk much. The sky outside was almost pitch black by now, but the streetlamps below them illuminated a long stretch of pavement where non-urgent patients could make their way to the hospital. It was strange to see so many people scurrying so far below. They looked more like ants than human beings.
With a soft sigh, Frisk let their mind wander. So many things they tried to avoid thinking about, and yet this day had dragged them all back out into the open.
When the monster finally fell, he bled red. His blood was cold and bitter and slick like water, completely unlike any substance Frisk had ever tasted before.
Not that they cared. They were too caught up in their joy. They threw their head back and howled victory at the arched ceilings, rubbed their fingers together to feel the way the dust flaked off. It had been worth the wait.
And then—they thought. It was always their downfall, thinking. They wondered things like, what happens now? and what'll I do if I never can fight him again?
A future like that was completely unthinkable. They wouldn't stand for it.
It had started out as a simple enough plan: go back to the beginning, manipulate the skeleton, find a way to lure him into a fight somewhere else. Easy.
They'd spent a lot of time imagining the different places the two of them could do battle; if they fought in The Core, would he try throwing them into the magma that churned below? If Frisk goaded him in Waterfall, how long would it take before he tried to drown them?
Except 'manipulating' had become 'gaining trust' and 'gaining trust' had become 'earning trust' and before they knew it 'earning trust' had become something else entirely, something bigger and scarier than they ever could have imagined.
They weren't the child they used to be. But the shame was still too close, too raw, and the knowledge that they could so easily become that person again if only they just gave in was almost too much for them to think about.
Sorry, Sans. I owed you an answer, but I didn't promise you the truth.
Maybe someday they'd tell Sans how it really happened. When they were older and braver, perhaps. Until then, Frisk was more than happy to sit next to him in companionable silence and watch the cars roll in and out of the parking lot below.