Undertale: Reason to Live

Chapter 82

When the trio ceased hugging, Burgerpants gave them all their water bottles and allowed them to drink while he thought through his next moves and kicked himself for not thinking ahead better.

"Hope you enjoy the water," Burgerpants said. "I would have brought you food if I thought about it…"

"Don't worry about it," Undyne said tossing the empty water bottle aside. "You've already done more than enough."

"And unfortunately, I've exhausted our resources," Burgerpants said sadly.

"What?" Undyne asked incredulously.

"What are you talking about?" Papyrus yelled cheerily while he also threw aside his empty water bottle. "You can teleport us back to Snowdin! Nyeh heh heh!"

"He can't do that, Papyrus," Frisk said finally tossing aside his empty water bottle as well.

"Why not?" Papyrus asked innocently.

"Because I ain't powerful enough," Burgerpants sadly replied. "My teleportation range is very limited. I can't go anywhere above a few miles and Snowdin is much further than that. The closest I can get ya is to the studio, and I doubt you want to go back there considering how much he has beefed up security."

"Do you mean to tell me that you don't have any more plans?" Undyne asked angrily.

"Undyne, we need to stay calm," Papyrus said.

"Yeah," Frisk said. "Burgerpants has a plan. Right, Burgerpants?"

"Yes, I have a plan," Burgerpants said defensively. "You're going to keep going through the darkness and I'm going to find River and keep destroying the studio's equipment so Mettaton can't find you."

"That's the next step of our plan?" Frisk protested. "Burgerpants, you can't do that. That's too dangerous!"

"Yeah, what if you get caught?" Papyrus asked nervously.

"I'll be careful," Burgerpants assured them. "Look, I know this part of the plan sucks big time, but I literally could not come up with anything better. If Mettaton gets me, he'll just throw me out like he did to River, so I shouldn't have much to worry about."

"You can't be serious," Frisk begged. "Don't do this."

"Look, I either help you this way or you can wander into the heavily-lit obstacle course ahead of me and get caught," Burgerpants replied sarcastically. "Which sounds preferable?"

Frisk sighed and conceded, "Fine."

"Are you sure you can do this?" Undyne asked.

"Yes," Burgerpants said as confidently as he could muster. "You'll know it's safe to keep going when the lights are out. In the meantime, you keep going and stay out of the light as much as possible. I'll keep in touch with you on the phone. If I don't respond for a while and the lights are on, you'll know I've been caught or that something has happened. I really wish I had a better plan than this. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Papyrus said encouragingly. "I'm sure you'll be just fine."

"Thanks for everything, Burgerpants," Frisk said as Burgerpants turned to leave. "I owe you one."

"No problem, kid," Burgerpants replied. "I hope this makes up for earlier."

"Don't worry. It totally does."

"Good. Keep me in those prayers of yours."

As soon as Burgerpants said that, they heard him teleport away.

"Now, we can advance," Papyrus said taking Frisk's hand and his violin case and running ahead before the latter had the time to protest.

"Papyrus, wait!" Undyne said. "We don't know where we're going in the dark. You might run over the edge!"

"Oh, yeah," Papyrus said stopping cold in his tracks so quickly that Frisk almost tripped over his feet. "That would be really bad."

Undyne sighed and said, "We should have asked Burgerpants to teleport us out of the obstacle course. Now, we have to go slowly so we don't die."

"No, we don't," Frisk said having quickly come up with an idea. "You have me. Remember? I've been through this obstacle course dozens of times. I can show you the way out of here."

Papyrus lifted Frisk into his arms, threw him up in the air, caught him, and said, "Oh, how I've missed your schemes!"

"I don't know about this," Undyne said in hesitation.

"Why not?" asked Papyrus as he set Frisk on the ground. "Frisk is right. He's been through this obstacle course a lot of times before. He can lead us out of here no problem."

"Papyrus, it's dark," Undyne replied. "Even if Frisk knows the way out, how is he supposed to find it?"

Frisk thought for a moment before he came up with another idea.

"The bombs," Frisk said. "If I can find where those are, I can figure out where on the map we are and find the exit."

"That could work," Papyrus said happily.

"I'm still not sure about this," Undyne said more seriously than before.

"Why not?" Frisk asked in annoyance.

"Yeah, Undyne," Papyrus replied. "What's the problem? Frisk has a good plan. What is there to worry about?"

"He could still be snatched by the Metal Freakazoid without us knowing," Undyne protested.

"I know," Frisk said excitedly. "I'll just play my violin, so you can hear me…"

"Or, we could just use our phones to light the way," Undyne said turning on the flashlight on her phone. "That way, we can see everything."

"Good thinking," Papyrus replied doing the same thing. "Don't know why we didn't come up with that earlier. Come on, Frisk."

Frisk sulked and whined, "But my idea is more artistic and beautiful and stuff…"

"And less practical," Undyne retorted as she walked past them. "Come on, Frisk."

Frisk continued sulking in disappointment, so Papyrus lifted him onto his shoulders and said, "It's okay, Frisk. Your idea was still cool. Say, why don't you play the violin for us while we find our way out of here? Mettaton can't hear us anyway. I can call Sans, so he can hear it, too."

"Okay," Frisk conceded as Papyrus opened the case he was carrying and handed him his violin and his bow.