19 - Monster Kid

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Finn blinks, stepping back in alarm, but soon relaxes. The monster doesn't seem at all threatening, it's just in a hurry. It's  a little shorter than they are and looks a little like a cartoonish version of a dinosaur. Its feet are clawed, and it's wearing a brown and yellow striped shirt. It's running in a cute, childish way and, from what Finn can see, appears to be having trouble with its balance - indeed, several paces away from Finn, it trips and falls face-forward, landing on the ground with a tiny "oof."

"Whoa!! Are you okay?!" Finn hurries forward, looking anxiously at the monster's head, which is squashed against the ground. They're about to help it back up when, with a sudden jerk of its body, it rights itself and looks dizzily around, its eyes finally fixing on Finn with a start. It stares at Finn's sweater for a moment, then moves its gaze up to their face, excitement leaping into its eyes. It's then that they notice that the monster doesn't have any arms.

"Yo! This is so cool!!" the monster exclaims, its mouth widening into a grin. "Two new kids in one day?! Are you here to see Undyne too? She's so awesome..."

"Undyne?" Finn cocks their head. "Who's that?"

"Whoa, you talk! That's awesome," the monster declares, then stops, its eyes widening. "Wait. You don't know who Undyne is?!"

"No," Finn admits, starting to feel like they should.

The monsters looks even more excited. "Yo, that's great! I get to be the one to tell you how amazing she is! She's only the Captain of the Royal Guard, the most noble and epic person to ever exist! She beats up bad guys all the time. If I was a human, I'd be scared stiff of her! I'm still kinda scared stiff of her, haha!"

It reminds Finn of exactly how that one kid in their class used to talk about the President of the United States of America.

"Hold on," Finn says, trying to process all this. "Did you say that I'm the second new kid you've met today?"

"Yup!" The monster pauses, its excitement dimming a little. "Yo, the other one - no offense, but they were kinda quiet, you know? Didn't seem very hyped about the whole awesome meeting-Undyne thing."

Finn's heart grows cold. "Were... were they wearing a blue and pink striped sweater?"

"Yeah! It's the only thing that told me they were a kid." The monster pauses again, then blinks, suddenly looking rather abashed. "Yo, they a friend of yours? No hard feelings, right? Nothing wrong with being quiet..."

Finn stares at it, wondering how on earth it's still alive.

"Yo, if you want, I can take you to them," the monster offers, brightening.

"They went down this path?" Finn asks, gesturing to the cave ahead.

"Yeah! 'Cept it has a dead-ish end, so I let them climb up on me so they could get over it and go meet Undyne." The monster wrinkles its nose. "They were kinda rough."

Finn suddenly feels extremely sorry for this poor, sweet monster child.

"Now I'm looking for another path to go see Undyne," the kid explains. "Wanna come?"

Finn looks at them, thinking. On the one hand, helping the monster find a different path and going with them to see Undyne sounds incredibly fun. On the other hand, they are in the middle of an apocalypse. Finn needs to stick closely on the tail of the other human if they're going to right all their wrongs.

"Hey, howabout we go down this path, and when we get to the dead end, I climb up it using my epic tree-climbing skills and then pull you up, too," Finn suggests.

The kid beams at them. "Yo, you'd do that? Sounds great to me!" It turns and starts bouncing away into the next cave, then turns back and looks at them sheepishly. "Yo, do you think you could grab an umbrella? It's kinda rainy down the path."

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