The Tables Have Turned - Undertale Fanfiction

12 - Faint

~ Frisk's P.O.V. ~

Thousands of little conspiracy theories ran through my head as I examined the echo flowers with Austin. There was something odd about him. I didn't exactly know what. He reminded me of Nabstablook and Asriel and Papyrus and Asgore and Grillby and Chara and Sans and Gaster and Undyne all at the same time, my head was really messing with me. I didn't know what was up about him but he just had this weird.. aura surrounding him.

Austin seemed to be walking slower and he looked exhausted. Once we'd listened to all the surrounding echo flowers - as speaking could have ruined their recording - I offered to walk him back to the Ruins but he declined my offer and we continued listening to the echo flowers.

We had been wandering around Waterfall for about an hour - it now was past 1 a.m., I believe - and we had finished checking all the echo flowers in Waterfall, to no avail. And we hadn't seen a single person. I hadn't charged my phone and Austin hadn't even brought his, so we couldn't give Alphys updates about the current situation. She probably wasn't expecting us to arrive this soon, too.

So me, being as smart as I am, figured we should go somewhere to roam.. and that somewhere was.. Temmie Village. Austin nearly buried his face into the wall he was leaning against, and he made a noise that sounded like a distorted yawn of some sort - it was not even worth calling a groan or sigh or whatsoever, because that's not what it was - but he didn't have a choice. Alphys would be either having an anime marathon or she would be asleep and I didn't want to interrupt either of those activities. So, hoping we would find a sign of life in Temmie Village, we walked there, the light blue crystals lighting up the path and guiding as we went.

But.. even Temmie Village was silent. No Tems, no Bob. As empty as a village could be. In all honesty, I was about to bawl my eyes out. Had something bad happened, that'd caused everyone to flee to somewhere else? Were they afraid of me? Afraid of Austin? Had they turned against us? Did they find out I had killed Sans..? Mixed feelings fought for the upper hand in my mind. I was upset, frustrated, sad, scared, angry, exhausted, confused. Everything all at once. I probably could've kicked Undyne the Undying's grooty - don't ask me what a grooty is - in a one-on-one match at that moment. That's how frustrated I was. Austin put his left hand on my right shoulder and gave me a patient smile when I turned around. And, for a moment there, I think his left eye flashed yellow.

~ Austin's P.O.V. ~

By the time we had checked every echo flower in Waterfall, with no results aside from exhaustion, Frisk offered to go Temmie Village. Okay, it was not really an offer. More of an order. Boy, the tune that played in my head every darn time I went to that little village.. Banging my head against a diamond wall wouldn't have been near enough to slam the god forsaken tune out of my head. The instance Frisk dropped the name "Temmie" I turned around to face the wall I had been leaning against and I grunted in the most idiotic way possible.

Great, my voice was slowly getting messed up. How convenient. At least I was aware of it. But I had to recharge sooner or later and I was slowly losing control of my physical body. In other words, I felt like I was about to faint half of the time. It was a lot like that feeling you get when you get out of bed too quickly in the morning and your blood starts flowing to your head again. And, if I fainted, my physical body would disappear and I would shift back to my shadow form and I'd have to rest for at least a couple of hours, whether I liked it or not.

Frisk gave me a weird look, she must have noticed the strange distortion in my voice, but ignored it - probably assuming I had caught a cold when we walked through the pouring rain on Mt. Ebott and through the snowstorm just to the east of Snowdin - and headed to the great Temmie Village. I was starting to lose the ability to feel anything in my legs and I had trouble walking. Once we got to the small village, we both saw something.. quite surprising. Surely, it could've been expected. But, for real, even my grandfather hadn't ever been to a Temmie Village without getting the annoying tune in his head and without seeing any of the Tems or Bob around.

I was leaning against the wall, struggling to keep my balance as well as conciousness, and Frisk stood where the Tem shop used to be. Despite my vision being blurry, I could see her legs shaking and I walked forward to comfort her. I put my left hand on her right shoulder. When she turned around, I smiled, as if the reassure her. My natural instinct is to glow my eyes to comfort friends and it had become more of a reflex instead of habit. I caught my left eye flashing yellow for a brief moment and I stopped it before Frisk could've seen the flame. Though, she could have been able to see the flash. And I think she had seen the flash, even if it was visible for less than half a second - she was very observant, as always, and always focused on the details, after all - and she frowned slightly after I stopped my left eye from glowing and causing me potential trouble.

I let go of her shoulder and stepped back, causing me to finally lose my balance and if it wasn't for Frisk, I would've cracked my skull again. She caught me just before the back of my head could kiss the wall. We were in this awkward pose where balance - something I'd lost - was quite an important factor and I think our weight was a little out of balance, as well. She fell forwards because I simply was too heavy to keep everything balanced out. I caught myself quickly - my right hand had kept me from smacking into the wall - and my left hand was covered in an orange-blue light which had kept Frisk from falling face-first into either my chest or the ground beneath me. Luckily she had been slightly disoriented because of the sudden loss of balance and my magic let go of her quickly, and I caught her by the shoulder with my left hand. I pushed myself from the wall with my right hand and was now standing up straight again. Frisk recalibrated a fraction of a second afterwards and thanked me for catching her. She hadn't noticed the magic that had caught her? Good, good.

And that's where my vision turned black and I fainted..