VOXISTALE: Novel Edition

Chapter 19

"What do you think it is?" Asgore asked, peering over Undyne's shoulder at her laptop, which the drive was stuck into.

"It's . . . difficult to decipher," the cop admitted. Strings of letters, numbers, and symbols were filing by on her screen, but all seemed to follow a pattern of some sort. Asgore could only wonder what the heck Toriel had involved herself in.

"Is it . . . backwards, or . . . ?" Asgore questioned, admittedly not very adept with computers or technology in general.

Undyne shook her head, "No, it's too complex to be backwards. It might be a cipher, or . . ." she sighed, trying to figure out what it was. Toriel had obviously set this up so that even if it fell into the wrong hands, nothing bad would happen.

"Wait . . ." Carl leaned forward, straightening his glasses and squinting. "Some of those symbols look like-"

"SOULs. I noticed," Undyne replied.

"No," Carl shook his head. "Not those ones. This one here, it looks like that Skelechef fellow." He pointed at a small symbol, which indeed did look like Papyrus' head. Next to it was a series of numbers, and letters. The letters spelled out 'RAPTOR'.

None of this made sense, until Undyne leaned forward a little more, squinting at the numbers. "Uh . . . what's the date today?"

"Hm . . ." Asgore frowned when he saw the date displayed on the screen. "That's . . . today's date . . . wait . . . there's a symbol of a horned peach . . ."

"Asgore, that's you!" Undyne exclaimed, now very confused. There were letters beside the symbol that spelled 'PSYCHO.'

—along with the date of Asgore's attack.

"Oh shit. We need to go to Paps. Now," Undyne urged, about to pick up the laptop and take off, but Asgore rested a hand on her shoulder.

"Wait," he replied, his tone deep, dark, and threatening. Not toward the Officer, but to the laptop as his eyes stared into it.

Toriel. The date of her death. 'DEMON' beside that.

Jaw set, Asgore took a step back. "Let us deal with this 'Raptor' first," he said, his fists clenched.

Papyrus was seated in a bench swing, gazing out at the sun and the ocean below. He'd been doing a whole lot of nothing lately, still very saddened by Mettaton's 'death' and had stopped by Alphys's lab 12 times in the last couple days to check the progress of Mettaton 2.0. Oh, if only he'd taken a commercial break just a few minutes sooner . . .

"OH, METTATON! WHERE ART THOU, MY SWEET METTATON! THE GREAT PAPYRUS MISSES YOU!" the skeleton called out in a shrill voice.

Instead of a vocal response, the loud ring of clanging metal could be heard, making the skeleton jump up in surprise. "WOWIE!" he twirled about, gazing in interest around him, but seeing . . . nothing. With a frown, he spoke aloud; "I WONDER WHO COULD HAVE DONE THAT." Assuming it was Sans pulling a prank, Papyrus turned back around. "WHY, I COULD ALMOST SWEAR I SMELL KETCHUP."

"Funny, me too," a calm voice called out to him.

"THAT'S NOT SANS . . ." Papyrus squinted, looking around. "ER- THE GREAT PAPYRUS IMPLORES YOU TO SHOW YOURSELF, STRANGER!"

There was a brief moment of silence, before a figure leapt out from a nearby tree. Papyrus noticed just in the nick of time, and leapt before the stranger could land. The skeleton could hear wood splintering behind him, and turned to see the bench reduced to sawdust and wood scraps. Standing atop the bench massacre was a human: an adult human, with shaggy brown hair and a grimace across his face. And were those . . . claws on his hands?