New Skin Part 3

Part 3

The veritable pile that was on the sofa untangled itself and hopped onto the floor, Anon flexed their arms and stretched their joints a little. The compressive force of no less than two enthusiastic hugs had left them feeling rather like a bent bit of metal.  As everyone made their way to the door Anon reflexively checked to the side of the doormat for their shoes, now realising that they didn't have any anymore.

"So uh, what's the deal with shoes around here?"

Toriel paused for a moment before realizing what Anon was asking about. "Oh, I see, well the thing is that there isn't much in the way of shoes down here in general, most monsters either have no need or there are none in their size. It's rare for a monster to both have the feet for shoes and be able to find a pair. Boss Monsters like ourselves have a rather interesting property in that we can adapt to situations slightly, so there is no real need for gloves or shoes in most common cases. That being said a hot pan or a sharp splinter can still do some damage, and cold is still as much an issue for us as anyone else."

Anon nodded but they still felt a little unsure, it was hard to undo a lifetimes worth of instinct with just a few words of reassurance.  Everyone else stepped out onto the gravel path, Anon was still hesitant and it took them a few moments to actually step off the nice flat floorboards onto the rather sharp looking pebbles. Everyone else waited patiently, Anon stepped down, expecting the prangs of pointy stones digging into their foot and much to their surprise there was nothing. They felt the stones, every detail, every texture, every sensation but there was no pain. Their foot did feel a little "thicker" like it was resisting the gravel, needless to say it was an odd sensation.

Toriel smiled at them and held out a hand, Anon reached out and took it without thinking about it and it took them a while to realise what they had done. Inside they felt a little embarrassed but at the same time a part of them rather liked the idea of being lead around. The set off down the garden path, the house was inset into a large rock face with two very tall walls heading up to the cave roof either side of the garden. The garden lawn was well kempt and immaculate, not a  single blade was out of line, at the front of the house were small beds of golden flowers, their petals practically glowing. The tree was fat, somewhat short and had lots of leaves, Anon couldn't tell what kind of tree it was.

Asgore moved the doorstop away from the door and let it click shut, he hung a sign up on the door that read "Howdy, we're not in at the moment but do make yourself at home, we'll be back soon."

"So what's with the sign?" asked Anon "You don't mind complete strangers just walking into your house and doing whatever? You're not worried people might mess up the place or steal things?"

"Strangers are just friends you've yet to talk to."  said Asgore cheerfully "Besides, I'm not sure how things work up surface these days, but down here we all look out for each other and always see the best in people and I don't think anyone would be so bold as to rob OUR house."

They left the walled garden into what was a large tunnel, to the right it curved out of view and to the left it ended with a door on the leftmost wall. The tunnel was made of a light stone that almost looked pinkish purple. The door lead out onto some kind of balcony or overlook inside a huge cavern, before them lay a fairly large cityscape, towers, domed buildings and rows upon rows of streets. The view was breathtaking, the city actually dipped in the middle and rose up towards the edges of the cavern wall, curving up the rock face and even climbing it in places. Looking up there were even some buildings set into the cave roof like strange rectangular stalactites.
"Wow... it's huge! A whole city under a mountain..."

"It looks big from here but it's really rather small once you get to know it." Said Toriel, gesturing to the far cavern wall "Why a walk around the very edges of the city would take you an hour at most... but even though it's not much, it's still home. Come, why don't we see it a little closer?"

To their right was a fairly sizable elevator, one of those cargo sized affairs that can shift a few dozen people all at once.  To its right was a series of either buttons or tiles, they had strange pictures on them. Asriel quickly shuffled the tiles around and it made a crown shaped pictogram, he then pressed it in and the elevator door slid open.

“Our floors puzzle is the crown, remember that!”

There were about four buttons and if the number above the door was any indication there were on level three of four.  Asgore prodded the ground floor button, the doors slid shut and the lift moved downwards.  A large window set into the side allowed everyone to take a look out as the city rose up around them. Judging by the appearance most buildings were five stories tall at best with a few exceptions in the skyline.  It had an interesting “old London” look to it, with stone rims, false battlements,  flowers resembling the  fleur-de-lis patterned into the brickwork. The streets had no distinction between road and pavement, everything was solid paving slabs made of the same pinkish stone. Anon made a guess that there were no cars underground, but they did see a monster resembling a lobster with octopus legs riding an otherwise ordinary bike down one of the larger roads.

“So what’s with all the pink bricks? Is pink popular down here or something?”

Toriel shrugged, “It’s just the colour of most of the stone around here, it’s a bit like granite only with pink crystals as opposed to white or grey.”

"I think it looks rather fetching." Said Asgore tugging at his pink shirt.
The lift juddered to a halt and the door slid open, everyone stepped out onto the pavement and turned down a large street rather appropriately named "Main street" A gentle tug from Toriel's had got Anons attention.

"This street leads all the way down to the middle of the city, where the City Hall and Royal Court are located. You can tell which side of the city you are on by the compass marks set in the floor every few paces."

Sure enough one such marking was by the lift with North pointing down Main Street. They walked on towards the city centre, anon keeping rather close to Toriel, being somewhat nervous of all the strange people walking around. To call the place "colourful" was an understatement, there were lizardy things and fishy things and rabbity things and horsey things. Things that walked, things that crawled, things that oozed and things that drifted. They all came in a variety of colours, patterns and shapes, some were humanoid, others resembled animals and some were a mix of everything.

A lot of them gave a polite nod and 'Hello' towards the group, while Toriel, Asgore and Asriel waved back Anon felt a little intimidated and found themselves pressing a little closer to Toriel. Indeed they began to notice how hard they were squeezing her hand, they found the idea both stilly and yet comforting at the same time. They pondered on the idea that despite having been an adult less than a day ago they now seemed to be acting like a child. It was a confusing thought, even though they were aware of what they were doing they either wouldn't stop or didn't want to. In the end they resolved to squeeze Toriels hand a little more and let them lead the way.
They came to a section where each side of the street was lined with shop fronts, some had colourful signs, some were a more reserved affair, others had little awnings and some had a single window pane where others had one of those multi panel bay window affairs.

"Here's where we do most of our shopping, there's everything from books, toys, knitting, gardening, cooking all the way to bicycles beds and clothing. There's even a fair few electronics stores these days."

Asriel suddenly grabbed Anons hand and dragged them towards a shop marked "hOme's Law"  in the window were some TV sets, computers and phones. While they had unusual designs and odd shapes Anon could tell that they were somewhat dated. The mobile phones boasted 1.4 megapixel cameras and sub 720 resolution screens.

"Check it out [Anon]! They have new phonesin with 2 whole gigs in them!"

Something in Anon stirred, despite the feelings of uncertainty, insecurity, fear, shyness, nervousness and all the other ways their emotions were messing with their mind right now something pushed its way through to the surface and demanded its turn on the floor.

"Do you know what 2.4 gigs means in this regard?"

"Well it's better than the old 1 gig phones right? Cus there's more gigs?"

Outwardly Anon managed to keep a straight face, he was technically right and Anon could not correct them, but inside they sank a little, two things were suddenly clear. Firstly this city of monsters was a good few years behind humanities latest achievements in computing and secondly, they were living with a bunch of tech illiterates who didn't know any better. This gave anon pause for thought, they initially wondered if they could pass the broken remains of their phone on to the Skelequin scientist, perhaps they could learn something new from it. Then they wondered if their knowledge of newer technology concepts would impress or amaze anyone, perhaps they could pull Clarkes third law and pass it off as some new kind of magic. Lastly they remembered that they kept their 3DS in their jacket pocket most times of the day and wondered if it survived the trip down. They nearly sprinted back to Toriel for more information.

"Say Toriel."

"Yes my child?"

Anon found her expression a little bit uncomfortable considering their situation, "What did you do with my old jacket? I know it's ruined and all but there was something I wanted to check."

"Well we left it back home, we didn't have time to do anything with it as we were rather more focused on making sure you were alright."

"Oh ok, it's just I kept something in it that could be somewhat important."

"Well then we can have a look when we get home my child."

They walked onwards towards a larger domed building, by most standards it was actually not that big, but it certainly was one of the largest in the city.

It's front was adorned with a set of large marble steps and an overhang was bolstered with false pillars. The marble was also somewhat pinkish like the rest of the stone, it was immaculately clean and a small creature that looked like a cross between a bathtub and a bucket was happily scrubbing away in the corner whistling a cheery tune.
At the top of the steps was a set of double doors, in spite of the rest of the buildings old looking facade these doors were rather modern glass panes with brushed metal handles. Above the doorframe was a larger bas-relief version of that symbol that was dotted around the house.

"This here serves as both city hall and royal court." Asgore gestured to the front of the building. "Seeing as the affairs of the crown are rather closely tied to the affairs of people it made sense to put all the important stuff in one place. At some point I'll bring you here while business is done, it'll give you a good opportunity to learn about us."

"It'll also be very boring." Asriel sighed.

"Now now Asriel, politics are very important, you shall also have to learn how they work, as one day responsibility will fall to you."
They carried on walking around the building, a garden area extended out from where the stars jutted away from the building, this carried on around bordering it on all aside with what can only be described as a "park ring". Here people were sat on blankets having picnics, swinging from trees, playing catch and generally the things most people did on a summers evening.  Bordering the park was a small canal periodically bisected by footbridges, here more aquatic looking creatures were swimming around, some were relaxing by the side and others seemed to be milling around as if commuting. Anon noticed there were tunnels set into the canal wall that pointed down the various side roads surrounding the city centre. No doubt to allow water-bound monsters access to most areas of town without getting too dry.

The park was also immaculately kempt, a small troupe of monsters were busy at work trimming, preening, watering and weeding the various  beds, bushes and lawns and some of them waved to Asgore as they walked past.  On the other side of the building main street continued onwards, leading down to what looked like a sheer cliff face. Posted on the corner of the street like some silent sentinel was a tower, it was shorter than city hall but it's thin structure made it look taller than it was. Adorning the top of the tower was a large clock face, with ornate ace-of-spades hands and roman numerals. The clock showed the time to be nearly Six o'clock, Asgore paused for a moment and raised his hand.

"Any moment..."

He snapped his fingers and, as if on cue, the clock began to strike, the bell was actually rather light and merry sounding in spite of the dour look to the building that housed it, Asgore grinned and every continued onwards.
"So what's at the end of the street?" Asked Anon.

Toriel pointed the far wall "From there is a tunnel that leads deeper into the underground, after a while it connects to the first town we built outside of the city and carries onwards to the site where we're building the new capitol."

"New Capitol?"

"Why yes, this city is a little old, and much too small to meet everyone's needs, before long it shall become overcrowded and unpleasant. So we've set to construction of a new and bigger city before it becomes a problem."

Anon was almost impressed, most of the time back home officials would ignore an issue like this till it was already a problem, seems this monster government wanted to ensure nobody ever had to live in suffering. As they continued this line of thought they began to notice a tiredness in their legs, not only that but they were starting to lag behind the others. A small part of them began to panic, just a little, enough to spur them on and jog a little bit to keep up. However just as they managed to catch up with the others their foot snagged on a wonky slab. They stumbled and headed for the floor face first, throwing their hands out on reflex they closed their eyes, bleated aloud again and braced for impact.

There was a sudden jarring sensation, but not in their arms or face, it was in their chest. In fact they felt a pulling sensation where there should have been a pavement sensation. They opened their eyes once more to find themselves higher above the floor than then they started, and a large white hand was wrapped around their torso.

"Whoops! Careful now! No need for you to fall down twice in one day!" Asgores voice snapped them out of their small moment of shock.
"Why don't you perch yourself up here and rest your legs for a bit, goodness knows you're probably not quite used to them."
Asgore raised Anon up to his shoulder and slipped them over, letting their legs dangle over his front.
"Take hold of my horns and hang on nice and tight."

"Are you sure?"

"Don't worry, you won't hurt me,  I'm stronger than I look and twice as tough!"

Anon found that boast impressive considering Asgore looked like they could pick a fight with a bear and win, the thought was even more amusing as a bear like monster just so happened to be happily plodding by humming something cheerful. Toriel smiled and rolled her eyes, clearly used to this sort of boasting, she probably thought it was cute based on her expression.

"Haha! That looks like fun!" came the rather excited voice of Asriel from down below.

"I guess you want to take a ride too don't you?"

"Yes please!"

"Well alright then, but no kicking or I'll dunk you in the canal!" Asgores quip earned him another smile from Toriel.
Asgore crouched down while trying to keep his back level and Asriel hopped onto his shoulder, Anon had to steady themselves on Asgores horn but otherwise it was a remarkably smooth and well executed manoeuvre. They set off once more towards the end of the street, Asgore managing to keep his shoulders remarkably steady as he walked, Asriel nudged Anon for some attention.

"Pretty good view from up here right? If you look just over there you can see the old fountain! Dad says people used to have to get their drinking water from there and carry it home in buckets, isn't that silly?"

"It's how things were back in the day, you have no idea how easy you young ones have it."

Asriel shrugged at that remark and carried on pointing out landmarks. "Over there is the old coach house, back in the day people used to ride horse and carts to get around, till we found out there isn't really enough room to fit a big cart in the underground and none of the horse people actually liked pulling carts anyway. Now it's a bike shop!"

Anon was rather enjoying the view, they hadn't realized how much their perspective had changed now that they were a couple feet shorter. They noticed a building that looked like a square keep just down a side road, Anon gave Asriel a nudge.
"Say Asriel, what's that over there?"

"That?  I think that's the royal guard keep. It's pretty old but it's still in use."

"It's where the Royal guard keep all their arms and armour locked away less little troublemakers mess around with them." Toriel leaned over and tousled Asriel ears. "Back in the early days when we feared we may be attacked at any time the guard was an impressive institution, one in every ten monsters was a well trained soldier ready to leap to our defence at a moment's notice. Nowadays they are just a handful of people on patrol to keep an eye out for anything untoward. We don't even have that much in the way of crime these days, when everyone carries the power to fling fire or rain thunder or freeze their enemies in place you tend not to try to upset anyone. We hardly have a proper police force, just some neighbourhood watch groups keeping an eye out for troublemakers. And most of the time it's just kids messing about." Toriel leered at Asriel who in turn looked a little sheepish.  "In the end it was rather unnecessary to have any sort of armed forces, monsters are made of magic and monster magic is mostly powered by love and compassion. It's hard for us to even fathom hurting someone else, if someone was ever in a spot where they needed to steal to make a living others would rally to their aid. So now we just have a few sentries posted at points throughout in we need to sound the alarm in case of invasion or disaster. In fact there's one such station just over there."

Toriel pointed to a simple wooden stand with a small roof, Anon looked at it and thought that all it needed was a menu and a grill and it would be the epitome of a popup hotdog stand. Sitting behind the counter was a dog like creature  with a bone shaped dog treat in it's mouth, the treat was smouldering at one end and it was reading a newspaper, Asgore moved over and gave it a wave.

"Howdy Dogga, anything to report today?"

The dog looked up and shrugged, tapping the ashes off their dog treat.

"Nuthin' just like yesterday and the day before and the day before that... still nuthin's better than sumthin' horrible."

"Ha, quite right! So I hear you and your wife recently had a son, is that true?"

The dog smiled and reached into their pocket pulling out a Polaroid photo of a rather confused looking puppy.

"Yeah, just a few weeks ago! Little Doggo, aren't he cute?"

"He sure is."

"He ain't half strong either, but... he does have a little problem with his eyes."

Asgores raised an eyebrow and got a concerned look on their face. "Oh my... is it serious?"

The dog shrugged. "Doc says it's a case of 'Hunters eye' they didn't sound concerned when they said it but I'm still not sure. They say that his eyesight detects movement real good, but if things are stark still he can barely tell them apart from the background. I mean, he can still move about the house just fine and if we keep moving around he can see us no problem, but if we sit still he kinda gets a little anxious and wonders where we went. Still, he can spot moving things a mile off, he once spotted a rat skulking down the bottom of the garden in pitch darkness, poor rat got the fright of their life when Doggo ran out there to chase them, little guy was just lost on the way home. Heck I promised to buy him a drink at the bar later tonight, turns he also had a kid recently, guess I made a friend the other day. Speakin' of new friends who's the new kid on yer shoulder? Ain't seen them around before."

"Well this is [Anon] who they are is a little... complicated, but they are staying with us for the time being."

The dog gave them a friendly nod "Nice t' met ya kiddo."
Anon was a little shy and had to stammer their words out.  "I... N-nice to meet you too."

"Any friend of Asgores is a friend of mine, if you ever wanna go for a walkies about town kid, I'd be happy to come with ya."
Anon found the sentiment confusing and a little disturbing, Asgore took note of their discomfort and quickly diffused it.
"Dogs love walkies, between that and petting it's one of the nicer things you can do for a dog, he's basically saying he trusts you and would like to get to know you better sometime. It's an odd term of endearment but it's one of the things that makes the canines so uniquely loveable."

"Oh... well, in that case do you mind if I?"  Anon reached a hand towards Dogga's head, Dogga cocked their head towards their hands in response. "Not at all kiddo."  Anon gave them a little tickle behind the ears, Dogga smiled and made some rather approving humming noises.  "Little to the left... up a bit... press just a little harder... there we go!" A thumping sound under the counter indicated Doggas leg was going and was presumably enjoying themselves. Anon scratched for a little while longer before Dogga made a motion for them to stop.

"Much as I'd like to sit here all day an' get pet kiddo I kinda gotta keep an eye out for trouble, even if it never happens the ONE day you drop yer guard is the one day it'll happen."

"Well it was nice talking to you again friend, we should really catch up sometime."

They wandered off leaving the sentry to his devices and carried on down main street, there wasn't much else this side of town, mostly just residential buildings with one or two small businesses here and there.  Nearing the end of the road and approaching the large cliff face it became easier to make out the tunnel set into the walls, more monsters were coming out of the tunnel than going in, and most of them were wearing hard hats, hi-vis jackets and protective gloves and eyewear, Anon concluded they must be construction workers for the new city. As they Approached the door Anon noticed a cold breeze starting to build, in fact some of the workers had frost on their feet or paws or whatever means they used for locomotion, Anon noticed many monsters were dousing globs of fire in the various appendages that classed as hands for them. The group stopped and Toriel gestured towards the tunnel.

"Beyond this tunnel lies the region of Snowdin, a rather mountainous snowy region permeated by a magical cold, it snows in there near daily hence the name. It's there that our first settlement we built beyond the city, but the region is too cold and rocky to build a place large enough for everyone."

"Sounds pretty interesting, are we gonna go there?" asked Anon.

"Perhaps sometime but not now, it is rather cold, I'd want you bundled up warm and carrying some safety fire."

"We'll I dunno how to make safety fire, I mean Asriel did show me and it was pretty neat but I'm not quite sure I can..."

Anon tried focusing warm thoughts in their hand for a moment, not quite sure what to do they just imagined a little dot in their palm and tired to focus on it. A tiny spark made a little pop and hopped off but otherwise nothing. Before they could try again Toriel clasped their hand between her palms and smiled at them.

"Do not worry my child, there will be plenty of time to teach you, but for now it's best you don't practise by yourself, you could possibly hurt someone if you don't know what you're doing. I'm no expert but judging by how you are a little... 'unusual' shall we say, it's probably a good idea that you be taught carefully, I have no idea how a little human essence might affect the casting of magic."
She turned to Asriel

"This does mean no more playing around with magic till we're sure [Anon] can use it safely, even if it's just safety fire."

"Yes mom..."Asriel looked a little downtrodden, Toriel took note and brushed  his ear.

"I know you want to try and be [Anon]'s best friend but I don't want them to hurt anyone, least of all themselves. It's not that I don't want you to have fun, it's just I want to make sure everything is safe beforehand. I promise it'll just be a little while, and I'll need someone to help me teach them, you will help me wont you?"

Asriel perked right back with a warm smile "I'd love to! You're up for that right [Anon]?".

"That does sound kinda fun."

"Well goodness don't you have a fine day to look forward to." A "I must say  I'm almost jealous, I'm going to be stuck talking to the people all day, that throne is NOT as comfortable as it looks."

Anon looked a little confused, "Did you just say... throne?" they began to join the dots in their head, things people said, details they skipped on due to the shock they were in and finally it clicked. "Are you the King?"

"Why yes... did we not tell you?"

"I don't think we did tell them." Said Toriel "I suppose it never really came up in conversation, you don't really have to tell people if you're the king or queen."

"Also cus I'm kinda your brother, so doesn't that TECHNICALLY mean you are also royalty? Heh [Anon] on the throne, it might just happen!"
Asgore shrugged, the pair on his shoulders had to grab for his horns.  "I suppose you're right, I'm not sure how lineage would actually work here, I mean you are both older than each other depending on how you measure it. [Anon] has technically been alive longer but you are older than them from a bodily standpoint."

Anon sat in thought for a moment. "I suppose that Asriel HAS been the queue longer that I have if you think about it. Still... High monarch [Anon] ruler of all monsters..."

Asgore chuckled "Easy there your Majesty, let's not let this potential power go to your pretty little head."

Everyone laughed, Anon and Asriel had to cling a little tighter Asgores horns lest they slipped off, after they stopped Anon noticed a chill starting to nibble at their toes.

"Hey is it chilly here or is it just me?"

"No, a draught from Snowdin often creeps in near here, we should probably head for home." Asgore turned to move. "Here, let me take care of that chill for you." With a click of his fingers Asgore conjured two balls of pale white fire in each hand, presumably safety fire. The warmth permeated Anons body and dispelled the rising chill. It wasn't too warm either, just a pleasant above ambient heat. Anon idly whisked their fingers though the fire making swirls and patterns, the white flame flickered various subtle colours at its fringes. They began to wonder what other subtleties you could pull with magic, they also wondered what colour they would choose for fire, something metallic perhaps like silver or copper, that might look neat.

As the group wandered back towards the lift giving polite 'hellos' and 'good days' to various people passing by, the city was actually growing darker, which Anon found odd as there was no sun to set. They gave Asgore a nudge to get his attention.
"Say Asgore, what's with the twilight all of a sudden? I don't see any sunlight down here so why is everything getting darker."

"Well young one, it's due to magical crystals mounted around the place." He pointed to some large crystalline stalactites mounted in the ceiling, and a few more atop the taller buildings." They keep radiating something almost like daylight so long as someone keeps jolting them with a small magical current. Depending on the size of the crystal it can take a while to fade away, in this case the ones here take about an hour to fully diminish into darkness. It's not perfect but simulates day and night well enough."

The crystals themselves were also an odd shade of pinkish purple, it was hard to tell much about them from down where they were but it was clear their glow was steadily fading away.  The group marched on and finally reached the lift, Asgore crouched down and gently let the children off his shoulders, they both stretched their legs a little while Asgore flexed his arms and rotated his shoulders.  Asriel was about to enter the sliding puzzle code for their floor but Anon wanted to try their hand and the odd security system.

"Hang on! I think I have this!"

"Sure! Go ahead!" Asriel stood aside and Anon flicked the tiles around till they made the shape of a crown. They pressed the pictogram with their palm and sure enough, the cargo doors slid closed and the lift began to rise. In the faux twilight the city looked a little different, certain details on the building were highlighted by shadow, Alcoves and indentations became more clear. Anon began to appreciate a gargoyle on a nearby rooftop they thought they hadn't noticed before, until it took wing and flew off. Anon wasn't expecting it to move but considering where they were it wasn't actually that odd, they  decided to wave to it, and they waved back, Anon wondered where they were going. The city disappeared behind the metal panelling of the lift shaft, as the doors slid open there was a small dog standing on its hind legs, a Pomeranian by the look of it. It was wearing some plate armour on its torso and carrying a sword and a rather typical looking shield. Looking closely the sword was made of a granite-like substance, the dog yapped and began to pant in the excited way dogs do and Asgore gave him a little pat on the head.

"Out on patrol so late? I admire you dedication! Good dog!"

The Dog stretched its head towards Asgores hand as he reached to pet them, it's neck seeming to telescope out from under its armoured collar. It yapped a couple times again in approval.

"I suppose you're headed back to sign out for the night?" The dog nodded "Very well, tell the others I said hello!" The dog gave an agreeable yip and headed into the lift, it fiddled with the sliding puzzle and the door slid shut.
The group headed back to the house, to Anon it seemed as though they had been gone for the whole evening, but in truth it had only been a couple hours at most. Even so, the light was dimming to the point where fine details were harder to make out, everyone wandered inside. The lights mounted on the walls were actually standard electric, which surprised Anon in a way, they were expecting something a little less mundane. Everyone moved to the lounge and sat down, Toriel took her spot in the chair by the fireplace with a flick of the wrist they sent a spark shooting into the logs igniting another safety fire.  The rest made do with the sofa, Anon sat to one edge and Asgore the other, Asriel sat in the middle. They shuffled over to Anon just a bit before putting a hand on their shoulder, Anon turned to face Asriel, Asriel smiled at them, Anon smiled back.  They shuffled a little closer together and leant on each other, Anon wondered if this was awkward... but it felt right, even if they'd hardly met the people here it was somewhat like they already knew them.

It was odd, here they were sitting next to a bother they never met before today in a house the never knew they lived in wearing a skin that was always theirs and yet had only been so since this morning. It was a bit of a headache to process, the best way to describe it was like a familiar stranger, in their head it sounded like the name for a either a classic album or something horribly pretentious, but the description was pretty apt. They had been here less than a day, but they already felt like they were 'home' and at the very least they felt safe, even if they were a little worried about what happens next. Before long Asriel gave them a gentle nudge for attention.
"Hey, do'ya wannago play with my action figures? They're pretty cool!"

Anon thought about what had just been asked of them, on the one hand they were rather too old to play with toys anymore, even if they did have a few 'figurines' of various robots and superheroes lined up on a shelf in their bedroom. Those were collectables for grownups, not some silly rubbish cheap plastic toys for kids. On the other hand it would be polite to humour their now supposed brother just for a little while... and a part of them DID like the idea of playing around with toys again. After thinking about it they resolved that this was two to one by way of majority and they should go play with the toys.

Asriel lead them to his room, the various stickers and drawings stuck to the door a veritable archive of childhood. The newest stickers were all soldier type cartoon characters, some wearing basic Khaki camo, others were driving tanks or wearing power armour and all the other future military gizmos 12 year olds liked. As the stickers became faded and more peeled they got a little cuter and less action oriented, going all the way from a group of young monster friends down to what looked like a smiling dancing flower.

"Seems you've gone through a few phases haven't you?" The question surprised Asriel somewhat.

"Hmm? Oh these? Yeah... I just sorta stick them on here when I get them, it's funny to look at the old ones and how silly they are, I mean why would anyone even like this stuff?" Asriel pointed to a cactus shaped like a person dressed up like a cowboy. "How goofy is that?"

Anon shrugged "Eh, kids like some really odd stuff, I remember I used to like something about a train with a face, it did nothing but train stuff. Do you know how boring train stuff actually is?" Asriel shrugged  "it's about as fun as picking up and moving bricks... or coal or whatever needs to be moved from point A to point B."

Asriel opened the door and they went inside, the room was about the same size as Toriel's  There was a fairly large single bed on one side with a multicoloured quilted duvet. There was a simple unpainted bedside table with a lamp and a glass of water on it. Along the far wall was a chest of Drawers, a cupboard and a small dresser with a Mirror on it. At the foot of the bed was a set of boxes, one contained a large dump of plastic construction toys, the next had as few stacks of board games and what looked like a junior chemistry kit. The third contained a tangle of your standard looking robot action figures, there were nimble looking ones, there were bulky looking ones, one was partway folded into a tank like shape and there appeared to be a remote control or two poking out there.
Asriel pulled the box out into the middle of the room, besides the haphazard way the toys had been packed the room was actually kept rather neat and tidy, impressive given the contrast to the slapdash sticker job on the door. Asriel dug deep and pulled out two large toys looking much like your standard Japanese mecha. Seems Anime got it's sticky fingers everywhere and down here was no exception.

"These ones are the best action figures you can get right now, not only do they LOOK cool but you can make 'em FIGHT!" Asriel reached back into the box and pulled out two black radio controllers.
"Which one do ya want? The blue one or the green one?"

Anon thought for a moment, neither of the toys had any obvious wheels or other mechanisms these toys tended to use to move around. The blue one was tall and spindly, it had an oversized wing and jet getup on its back that looked  rather unwieldy, sure if it was an actual jetpack it might be handy but that seemed unlikely. The green one was squat and lacked a head, the angular design was reminiscent of German world war 2 tanks and judging by the intimidating looking black insignia this was probably one of the bad guys. Still it had a rather heavy looking fist pointing out the front and the missile pods along the side seemed well balanced, Although the large cannon sticking straight up out it's back seemed a little impractical but these were children's toys, practical design often takes a back seat.
Anon turned the controller over, it had a couple joysticks, several buttons on the face and shoulders and a red switch on the end with the standard I/O power symbols. It was nicely ergonomic, all the buttons were in comfortable reach of their hands, dead in the centre was what looked like an LCD screen. Compared to some of the other tech they had seen down here this seemed a little advanced, then again it could just be very nicely designed, Anon gave the switch a flick and was rather surprised to find their meagre expectations exceeded.
The screen lit up and a rather decent looking image appeared on screen, it looked like a photo of the room with a rather heavily stylized on it, except the photo was sideways. It took a moment for Anon to realize that this was alive feed from a camera somewhere on the toy itself. Anon guessed this was kinda like a drone then, a large red button in the corner of the screen read "Power up!" and was flashing rather invitingly. Anon pressed the screen and much to their surprise the robot began to move on its own! In fact it moved rather nimbly, rolling itself into a crouch and standing up, it then made an intimidating beeping noise before coming to a stop.
"The controls are easy, one stick moves, the other turns, the Blue button jumps, the red button attacks, the yellow button changes attacks and the green button transforms. That guy is General Rivet, he is slow but tough, has lots of rockets, a massive punch and can go into tank mode. to use the big cannon. My guy is Ace Wind, he has a jetpack, a laser and can turn into an aeroplane to drop bombs."

Anon wiggled the sticks a bit taking note of this so-called General Rivet, it moved rather fluidly and could walk in a somewhat realistic manner, they pushed the stick to maximum and the thing could actually jog across the room with a good amount of speed. Anon pressed the fire button and the thing did a meaty looking punch, they then tried switching to the rocket pods, expecting little more than a flash from an LED on the robot and a tinny explosion sound from the controller. They physically jumped when what looked like a very real rocket shot across the room, they leapt out of its way and their throat let off another unintentional bleating sound. It smacked into the door, the controller shook and a tinny explosion sound came out of the speakers, the smoke fizzled out quickly but there was no damage, no burn, no impact crater, no nothing.

Anon stared dumbfounded at the spot where the missile had struck. "What the..."
"Holograms! They're pretty cool eh? It's better if you plug headphones into the controller, that way you get 3D sound. Shame my headphones are broken."

"Where did you GET these? We have nothing like that back home and from what I've seen our tech is MILES ahead of yours."

"Dad said he got his scientist friend to make them for my birthday, or maybe it was someone they worked with, I can't remember off the top of my head... Anyways, it's pretty simple, ya got your health bar on the screen down there, shoot each other to drop their health and... you probably get the idea."

"Alright then 'prince' Asriel, show me what you got!"

"I'll show you 'little Majesty' just you watch!"

Anon sent their robot in for a quick sucker punch, as they closed the gap, Asriel's robot's jetpack flared into life and front flipped clean over them, swiftly spinning round and slamming a laser into its back. Anon's health dipped down a fraction, they counted by turning around and firing a few rockets, two missed but one caught a glancing blow causing Asriel's robot to stagger. Before Anon could follow up Asriel jumped his robot into the air where it hovered for a few moments firing lasers wildly at Anon's. Anon tried to dodge but their robot was too slow, their jump was little more than a slow roll, their controller made a few metallic pings and their health dipped by a fair amount.

Asriel's robot started to sag towards the floor, seems it couldn't maintain the hover for more than a few seconds, Anon saw their chance and ran in for a punch. Asriel's robot went skittering across the floor and had to spend a few seconds righting itself, Anon used this time to pepper them with rockets. Holographic sparks were starting to flicker off Asriel's robot, it was clear that it was nearly over, but before Anon could level another shot Asriel's robot leapt into the air, span round and reconfigured itself into a jet plane.  It flew around the room at a rather worrying speed, Anon almost had to duck to avoid it once or twice which prompted a few surprised bleats and a couple of short apologies from Asriel. The bombs were brutal, slower and easier to dodge than the laser beams but they did a lot of damage when they struck, as hard as Anon tried their heath was being worn away and because their enemy was in the air and moving erratically they was unable to bring their  powerful fist to bear. Their rockets were too finicky to aim properly and they barely got any hits in.

"What's the matter? Having trouble keeping up?

Anon didn't reply, they merely shot the smug prince a look before firing another salvo of rockets. Again a couple clipped but nothing major. So seeing as transforming made Asriel powerful, Anon decided to give it a shot and hit the green button.
Their robot squat down and folded in on itself, reconfiguring into a tank, the large cannon on its back was now on the top and mounted to a rather unrestrictive and fast tracking turret. The heath bar changed a bit, grey squares resembling plates of armour bristled across the edges, Anon guessed they now took less damage. Sure enough Asriel managed to get a good bomb off on Anon's robot and their heath hardly budged. The controller now displayed a very nice looking targeting reticule and the shoulder buttons controlled the zoom, Anon fired an experimental shot and the blast form the main canon was impressive, the round was so fast it was near instant. Anon lined up a shot on Asriel's plane and fired, the blast sending the robot spinning out of control. Asriel fumbled with the controller struggling to get the plane back in the air, having to transform at the last second to avoid critical impact. Anon lined up another shot just as Asriel dodged over his robot, however Anon was able to quickly turn around and land a second hit.

Asriel's robot leapt into the air to transform but as it was spinning Anon lined up their crosshairs for one last all or nothing shot. As the jet sped off Anon fired, the round striking it straight in the centre, sending it plummeting to the floor in a shower of holographic sparks and smoke. It tried to stagger to its feet but it slowly started to chug to a halt, the sparks stopped and the lights on the head dimmed. Anons controller lit up with a colourful light show and fanfare as General Rivet stuck a victory pose.

"Heh! Beginners luck!" Asriel jeered.

"You think so? Wanna go again or are you scared i'm gonna beat ya?"

"I'm not scared! I was just letting you win!"

"Yeah sure!" Scoffed Anon "In any case mind I try out the other robot?"

"Sure go ahead!" They exchanged controllers and set about to round two, this time Anon made use of Ace Winds jetpack to circle around Asriel to account for his lower turning speed. After a tit for tat battle, Anon managed to win with a lucky laser strike to the back.

"HAH! That's two for two and I almost never needed to use the jet!"

"You've a clever one I'll give you that, ready for round three?"

"You're on!"

They played a few more times with the robots, after a while Asriel got wise to Anon's tactics and started winning fairly regularly, it was about to boil down to 'one final battle' but just before the decisive blow could be struck there was a knock on the door followed by Toriel's voice.

"Children? It's getting late, perhaps you should come have something light to eat before bed."

"Bed?" replied Anon "But it's only..." they looked at the clock and it was coming up to 10:30, seems that had been at this robot fighting for some hours now, goodness the time flew by. Come to think of it they were a little peckish, they set their controller back in the box.

"Guess we'll have to have a rematch at some point, that was fun!"

"Next time you won't be so lucky."

The pair headed back to the lounge where Toriel had put out the leftover pie, Asgore was already partway through a slice of his own. The children sat down and helped themselves, Anon wondered if it was healthy to have two slices of sugary pie for two separate meals, then they considered that this home baked pie was probably better for them than the chemical soaked instant crap they had been eating back home. They took a smaller slice than last time, they weren't feeling quite as hungry as they were earlier this afternoon.
Everyone quietly nibbled away at their slices and once they finished Anon offered to collect up the plates. Toriel smiled and thanked them and showed them where to set them down, just by the sink.

"So, do you need me to wash them up?"

"No need child, we use different methods down here."

Toriel set the plates in the sink and turned the tap on, clicking the fingers on bother her hands a stream of greenish trials and purple sparkles swilled the running water around the plates, they rattled and shuffled and in just a few moments they were all sparkling and spotless, with a fresh citrus scent.

"Huh... that's kinda impressive."

Toriel pat them on the shoulder, "Magic is incredibly versatile, if you know what you're doing you can achieve great things. This is just a simple trick that saves a few minutes in each day. That being said, there isn't one that's good for drying off, at least not one that is safe. If you would like to help I'd much appreciate it."

Anon grabbed a nearby tea-towel and dried up the plates putting them in a neat pile on the side. When they re-joined the rest Asgore was stretching out,  they yawned "Well I've got to be up early tomorrow, I suppose I best be off to bed." He walked over and planted a kiss on Toriel's cheek. "Goodnight honey."

She rubbed the back of his head "Goodnight Mister Fluffybuns..." Asgore blushed a little, Asriel rolled their eyes. He then tousled both the children's hair, his mighty hands capable of completely cupping their heads. "Goodnight you two, I'll probably not see you till the afternoon."

"Goodnight dad."

" 'night Asgore."

Asgore left the sitting room and a few moments later the door to his bedroom could be heard closing. Toriel slipped a bookmark into the book she was reading and sat up. "It is getting rather late, I think we should all turn in for the night."

Asriel hopped up, gave Anon a hug, kissed his mother on the cheek and went off to his room.  "Goodnight mom. Goodnight [Anon]."

Toriel stood up and put a hand on Anon's shoulder, "So my child, are you alright sleeping in here? If the sofa is not to your liking then there is a spot on my bed you can use, unless you would find that uncomfortable."

Anon thought about things for a moment, once again despite having been an independent semi-functional adult less than a day ago, the thought of being left alone filled them with a strange sense of anxiety. Something deep and instinctive, a desire to keep close to something familiar, something 'safe' something dependable. They grabbed Toriel's hand near reflexively and squeezed a little tight. "I'm not sure I want to be alone, I can't explain it, it's just... a really strange feeling."

"That's quite alright, I understand." She took their hand and lead them to her room. Not that it had changed since they were last here, and conveniently there was the pyjamas Anon was using still folded next to the shopping bag.

Toriel took her nightclothes and headed to the bathroom to get changed and brush her teeth. Anon got changed into their pyjamas, this time they took a better look at what they had become. Besides being more-or-less human shaped it was hard to ignore the short layer of fluff covering their body, they ran a hand up and down their chest and found it was remarkably soft and fluffy. They twiddled their ears a little and found the feeling of air brushing against them to be strange, it sort of made their head feel light and airy. They flapped them across their eyes a couple times and figured that actually these would be amusing to fiddle with on occasion. They looked at their hands next, while they were mostly human in shape what would be fingernails grew into finely pointed claw-like things that stuck out just beyond the fingertip. It was actually rather handy as they could dig into the fur to scratch an itch. Their palms and fingertips were still fur white, however the fur here was very thin. So much so that their fingers were about as sensitive as they were before they became human.  The biggest difference was their feet, instead of the usual five human toes there were three, and they were thicker and tightly packed like an animal's paw. They wiggled them around and despite being fewer in number they couldn't actually 'find' the phantoms of the toes they used to have. The sat down and focused, lifting toe one, then toe two, the toe three and then trying to lift a "fourth" toe... they found they couldn't do it. It's like they didn't remember they even HAD more than three toes, needless to say it left them feeling a little uneasy. If something so fundamental about them could be changed and overwritten what did it mean for themselves as a whole? In the end they decided to worry about it later, they were starting to get sleepy, the faint smell of lavender   in the room was getting to their head.

Not quite sure where to put their clothes they folded them up and put them back in the bag. After a while Toriel knocked on the door and asked if it was safe to come in, Anon opened the door for them.  "If you would like to brush your teeth child I put a spare blue one by the sink for you."

"Thanks..."

Anon went into the bathroom, it was a simple affair, everything was porcelain white aide from the bathroom tiles which were a soft blue. The sink had a mirrored cabinet above it and there were four toothbrushes in a holder by the mixer tap. One yellow, one green, one purple and one blue, Anon took the blue one, applied a squirt of a generic looking tube of toothpaste and brushed away.
It was actually rather odd, while actions that were natural came along just fine, trying to brush an unfamiliar set of teeth was proving to be difficult, they often missed a tooth or jabbed themselves in the gums, it took them a little while before they were done. They rinsed out their mouth with water and took another look at the face in the mirror.
This time the face looking back looked a little less shocked and a little more familiar, their eyes betrayed a little sadness but there was a lot of hope in there too. Anon found they were able to smile at them, and seeing the face return a genuine heartfelt smile back at them made them feel a bit better. They headed back to Toriels room and knocked on the door.

"Do come in!" Came a voice from the other side, and Anon opened the door.
Toriel was jotting notes in the book on her desk, presumably a Diary entry, after a few last scribbles she set the pen down and got up out of Chariel. Without thinking she walked over and actually picked anon up off the floor before throwing open the bedcovers, Anon wasn't expecting it and let loose another involuntary bleat. She suddenly realised she may have overstepped some boundaries.
 "Oh.. I'm terribly sorry I didn't realise...I didn't think...
Anon clung to her, they didn't quite know why but besides the initial surprise they actually didn't mind this too much.

"It's... it's ok, I don't... I don't actually mind, it's kinda nice. I sorta like it."

"Oh... well... I suppose if you don't mind, it's just you looked so small and vulnerable."

"To be fair, that's not too far from how I feel right now."

Toriel snuggled down into bed, pulling the sheets over both of them, Anon still clung to her chest not wanting to let go of her, feeling the cashmere softness of her fur. In response she wrapped an arm around them and pulled them in closer, Anon buried their face into her soft bosom. They took a deep gentle breath in and the smell that hit their nostrils was something that was both relaxing and familiar. In conjunction with the soothing lavender and the soft smell of the old wood in the house there was something else. To call it a smell unto itself was probably wrong, if you focused you could pick out all the standard smells of a person, such as the smell of their skin, their hair, the bits of dust and whatever perfume they might be wearing. This however was different, it did more than just stimulate the olfactory senses, there were emotions too, safety, comfort, reassurance, trust, love. It took Anon a moment to finally figure out what this 'smell' was, and thinking about what they had heard over the day and what they had become it started to make sense.
This was the smell of 'mother'; that scent every child picks up on, engrained deep into their brain from the day they are born, a few subtle smells that trigger powerful emotions and memories. Pressing their head closer to Toriels chest they could hear her breathing, her heartbeat, combined with the gentle touch of her hand on their head it triggered something primal in Anon. They were safe, their guardian was relaxed and there was no perceivable danger, their instincts began to calm down and usher their mind towards sleep. Their body and limbs began to fill the weight of tiredness and their thoughts began to cloud away and wind down. With each breath they took the smells travelled right into their brain, calming them down and soothing their soul. Toriels heartbeat a metronome that gently lead them deeper and deeper into sleep. Before long Anons eyes closed and their thoughts began to dance their way into dreams.

Anon breathed a deep sigh, snuggled deeper into the covers and slipped away from the waking world.