Strange Times, Stranger Places

Chapter 2: The Ruins, and The First Deal

The next day, Steven and Connie went on a little Mystery Hunt with Dipper and Mabel. Connie and Dipper seemed to enjoy the thought of finding mysterious things inside of the woods, and the other two joined in, having fun looking around and imagining strange things. They were headed up one of the nearby mountains. Pausing for lunch, Connie brought out sandwiches for the four of them they had prepped that morning. Everyone seemed to enjoy the view from the clearing. Nearby was a large hole, that fell deep into the earth.

They looked over it. "I wonder how deep it is..." Connie said. She stepped cautiously, closer. A twig caught her leg, and she started to fall, grabbed by Steven, then Dipper, then Mabel. Steven created a bubble around the four, to shield them as they fell to the Underground.

After they bounced, and landed, Steven desummoned the bubble. Dipper stared at him.

"What was that?"

"Nothing..."

"Come on! That was cool!" Mabel replied.

"It's a really long story."

"That's okay with us."

He told them everything he knew about the Gems so far, with Connie's help. He showed them his abilities, to create shields and his healing spit. It made the twins laugh, but also cringe a little, since it WAS spit.

"Okay, so how do we get out of here? The walls are smooth down here, and I doubt we could try to climb our way up."

"Let's go this way!" Mabel called from another part of the cavern. The three others followed, and met with another child, who was waving their hands frantically.

Frisk was trying to tell the newcomers where they were and what their name was, to no avail. It seemed none of them knew sign language. The child sighed, and ran towards Toriel.

Toriel! Toriel! Newcomers! There's four of them! And they're all kids like me!

"Oh! Child let us go greet them!" She took Frisk's hand, and led them back to the four confused preteens.

"Hello! My name is Toriel. I am the caretaker of the Ruins. I'm guessing you all fell down here?"

"Yea." One answered. A boy with a pine tree on his hat.

"This is Frisk. They fell down here about a day ago. Can you all please tell me your names?"

Mabel jumped at the opportunity. "I'm Mabel. The other girl is Connie, this is my brother Dipper," she pointed at the girl, then the pine tree hat boy, and finally the boy with a star on his shirt, "and that's Steven. It's nice to meet you!"

Toriel smiled at them, and said, "Well, I'm guessing your probably hungry. Let's go to my home in the Ruins." Frisk smiled, and nodded, taking Mabel's hand. She smirked, and followed. The other three kept up, listening as Toriel explained part of Frisk's sign language, to make sure they knew some of it to understand the child.

Behind them, in the room Frisk always met with Flowey, Bill Cipher floated towards the sneering flower.

"What do you want?"

"Oh, just to make a deal with you!"

"I don't want to make a deal. I can work on my own thank you."

"But you need my help, and I need yours. I'm looking to get my powers back, and your looking to destroy this underground world. With five of them, it's going to be difficult. Am I wrong?"

"No..."

"Okay! So my deal! I help you by making life hell for them, while your in the background sabotaging their progress. And when they're finally at the souls, we share the power! You get to destroy this world, and I get back my original power!"

"Alright. That sounds fair."

"Just shake my hand." Bills hand was covered in blue flame. Flowey shrunk away from it.

"That's fire!"

"It won't burn you. I promise."

"Fine."

A vine extended, and wrapped around the dream demon's hand. They smirked at each other, and began hatching a plan.

Here begins the point of view of the different characters. Where you see the story from their eyes. But who shall be showing you the story? Steven? Dipper? Connie? Mabel? Frisk? Or maybe the Undertale characters themselves?

But first, let's check above ground...

"Where did they go...?" Garnet asked, running up the mountain. The tracker in Steven's backpack disappeared, and so they couldn't find him.

"It was around this area..." Peridot said, a little worried. The green gem was attached to a leash, held by Garnet. Amethyst looked around, with worry.

Two humans were already searching the area.

"I swear! This is why I put trackers on the kids! They always run off!"

"Ford, where does it say they went?"

"It disappears over this hole. But they couldn't have fallen, could they?"

Pearl came out of the wooded area. "Are you guys looking for some kids too?"

"Wait, who are you?"

"My name is Pearl. We're looking for Steven and Connie."

"I assume they told you about Dipper and Mabel?"

"Yes. They said that today they were hanging out with them again."

They discussed what could have happened, and Amethyst flew down into the hole as a bird. She stood towards the top, on a solid surface. She turned back into herself, and yelled, "Pearl! There's some sort of force field or something down here! We can't get through!"

The two looked over to see the smaller gem. She turned into a bird, and flew back up, converting again back into herself. One of the guys stared in awe.

"Are you guys Gems? I've heard stories..."

"Yes. We came to see if any of the strange activity here was caused by gems or Gemtech. We were staying the whole summer to make sure..."

"It looks like they fell down there, but that would mean..."

"Somehow they got through the barrier."

"Oh! I'm Stanford Pines, and this is Stanley Pines. We're relatives of Dipper and Mabel."

Garnet and Peridot came out of the trees, and joined them all.

"I'm Pearl, this is Garnet, Peridot is on the leash, and Amethyst is the one that found the barrier."

"So... What do we do?"

"Find out how to break this barrier."

They walked off as a group, leaving the barrier alone. It seemed only children could pass through it.