Chapter Text
"How many times are you going to be so fucking defiant son?! Like I've told 1,000,000 times, you must master karate before you ever think of leaving my damn house!" Senior yelled at full force, with a bomb ready to be thrown in one of his hands, later to be thrown right at Joe's face. The sight of the bomb coming at his direction led to him instinctively punch it against his field of sight. Senior drew nearer to Joe, yelling some more right at his face. It was approximately 11:28 PM and Joe was on the verge of dropping dead to sleep, but that was something Senior often disregarded. "You must go to this particular mountain starting right now and train there for the whole day!" Joe's eyed opened for like 4 seconds, till he realized that he was far too used to this, but Senior wasn't done yet. "Mount E-B-O-T-T. Mt. Ebott. I repeat, For the whole day! Got that?"
Joe gulped upon hearing everything he needed to know, but proceeded and rushed out of the house immediately. He had absolutely know idea what Mt. Ebott even is, but he may have a clue or two about where it is. Nonetheless, it took him about 2 hours of constant running but he made it to the bottom of the mountain, then he proceeded to climb through. As Joe climbed further into Ebott, he found a huge crevice, almost like a cavern. Curiosity rises through his mind and, without hesitation, Joe rushed inside. He continued exploring through despite the view becoming dark, darker, yet darker. Until... a few vines get entangled into one of Joe's ankles, causing him to fall deep under. It was unclear how deep Joe was falling from but it's safe to assume that it was rather real deep, then ultimately landing into patches of what looked to be some yellow flowers.
After what seemed like a couple hours, Joe managed to get up. He didn't really get badly hurt or anything, at least, but at that point he had absolutely zero sense of time nor comprehension of what had just happened to him. "What is this place? Where am I?", he pondered, realizing that he was in a near black area, with a grey-ish, road-like path to the right and the patches of flowers he was on upon impact. There was SOME sunlight, but only so little that it only beamed through the patches. "Guess I just have to go whatever that path is leading to. I need to get out of here. Fast.", he told to himself as he walks down to a what seems to be a gate. Then, more darkness, it appeared. Joe swore he caught a glimpse of a singular flower as soon as he entered. He drew near the flower, but to his shock the flower started speaking.
"Howdy! I'm FLOWEY. FLOWEY the FLOWER!", the flower introduced itself. "What the?!" Joe flinched for a moment upon hearing the words being uttered by the flower. Flowey continued, "Hmmm... You're new to the UNDERGROUND, aren'tcha? For somebody that's seemingly a monster, this is quite odd!" "Wait, Underground? So this was where I fell to..!" Joe managed to figure out in the back of his tired head, brushing off the fact that he was being referred to as a "monster", with Flowey still going. "Golly, you must be so confused. Someone ought to teach you how things work around here! I guess little old me will have to do. Ready? Here we go!"
[LV 1 HP 45/45] A bluish, but still nearly white heart was enough to explain Joe's current mental image. To say he was static at this point is a bit of an understatement; he was in a bit of limbo, but not in full as he was still able to move around the mental image of that oddly colored heart around some compressed box.
"See that heart? That is your SOUL, the very culmination of your being!" Your SOUL starts off weak, but can grow strong if you gain a lot of LV. What's LV stand for? Why, LOVE of course! You want some LOVE, don't you?" "Uh, I guess? Whatever that means, in any case, because I clearly have never gotten any love lately in my life." "Don't worry, I'll share some with you!"
"Down here, LOVE is shared through... Little white... "friendliness pellets."" Despite the vagueness of what Flowey's trying to convey, Joe gradually began knew what he was in for. "Are you ready?" Move around! Get as many as you can!" The mental image inside Joe depicting what would be his "SOUL" moved, as if trying to stay away from the 'friendliness pellets'.
"Hey old buddy, you missed them. Let's try again, okay?" More of those white pellets came out, but his SOUL still steered clear from them.
"Is this a joke? Are you braindead? RUN. INTO. THE. BULL- friendliness pellets" Flowey's clearly irritated face made Joe give in, deliberately getting his SOUL hit into those friendliness BULLETS until... [HP 01/45]
"I knew such a GEEZER like you would be even MORE of an idiot. In this world, it's kill or BE killed." The whole statement shook Joe, both himself and his SOUL, to the core. Flowey's face changing into a more sinister one did not help in any capacity, but it did make Joe realize what exactly he was going to be dealing with from then on. "Why would ANYONE pass up an opportunity like this!?"
The white bull- pellets Flowey was being so persistent about circled the whole box, as if to target Joe's SOUL, no matter where he moved, as Flowey uttered one word that made Joe feel utter doom slamming downwards.
"Die."
Flowey's sinister laughter echoed through the room as the bullets drew nearer to his SOUL, but later stopped and a flame started approaching around Flowey, later hitting him in the process. Shortly after, a figure what seemed to be a goat-like woman came into appearance.
"What a terrible creature, torturing such a poor, innocent, being... Ah, do not be afraid, sir." The goat-like lady spoke then later introducing herself. "I am TORIEL, caretaker of the RUINS."
"Toriel...? The Ruins...?" After processing everything that has just happened, Joe managed to figure things out slowly. Toriel continued, "I pass through this place every day to see if anyone has fallen down. You are the first human to come here in a long time. No, you may be the first monster to ever fall down here. Nevermind that." The alternating mix-up between human and monster put Joe in a bit of confusion, but surely he knew he had to get used to it... Somehow...?
"I-it's really good to meet you, Toriel." Joe said with a slight of hesitation, still aware of the fact that him being either a human or a "monster" is in a state of conflict, somewhat. "Come! I'll guide you through the catacombs!", Toriel followed, giving Joe some kind of meaning to follow her somewhere. Following her lead, Joe was lead to another gate that introduced a room. A purple room with clearly dried leaves scattered in patches. Then they proceeded to another room, with 6 buttons set in some sort of form, as if needing to be pressed in some order. "* Welcome to your new home, innocent one." "My.....? new home.....?" hearing those words made Joe raise an eyebrow for a bit until a whiplash hit him. "You know, maybe it might be much better here than dealing with my father and the same exact routine of feeling trapped everyday.", he thought. "* Allow me to educate you in the operation of the RUINS." Toriel instructed, as Joe watched her press four of the aforementioned buttons then flipping a switch, opening a door in the process. "* The RUINS are full of puzzles. Ancient fusions between diversions and doorkeys. One must solve them to move from room to room.", Joe thought deeply about whatever puzzles he may have to come across. "* Please adjust yourself to the sight of them.", she added, then proceeding to the now open door, with Joe following.
By the next room, Toriel started off with "* There are two switches here you need to flip. Do not worry, I have labelled the ones that you need to flip." Carefully listening, Joe looked for these labelled switches, which he found around the walls, with Toriel waiting for him to flip each switch. Upon his flipping of the second switch, they felt a short shake, with what seemed like spikes behind Toriel retracting down. "* Splendid! I am proud of you, old one. Let us move to the next room." Toriel exclaimed, later going back to guiding him around the Ruins. "I've never heard such words from anybody 'till now, but was that old one part necessary?" Joe thought to himself, then went to the next room.
"* As a human living in the UNDERGROUND- oh... Are you a human again... or a monster? I apologize for the mess up. But just for the sake of circumstance, let us consider you a human. As one living in the UNDERGROUND, [other?] monsters may attack. So, you will need to be prepared." Joe nodded, but Toriel carried on. "However, worry not! The process is simple. When you encounter a [different?] monster, you will enter a FIGHT. While you are in a fight, strike up a friendly conversation." As she continued with her words, Joe started locking eyes on what looks to be a dummy. "Practice talking to th-" without any thought, Joe rushed straight for the dummy and punched it. The dummy handled the blow, as it just fell down instead of straight up turning into dust.
"* Ahh, the dummies are not for fighting! They are for talking! We do not want to hurt anybody, do we...? Come now." Toriel commanded in confusion, but was still somehow relieved that the dummy was just lying on the ground, then exited out to the next area. Joe followed, a bit embarrassed, but not without putting the dummy back up first.
"* There is another puzzle in this room... I wonder if you can solve it?" he followed her some more until... "!"
"* Froggit attacks you!" The white-bluish heart appeared within Joe's being again as a frog-like monster approached out of nowhere. Joe prepares his fists but immediately retracted as soon as Toriel gave the doltish Froggit a piece of her mind; a stare is enough for the frog to get out of their way. Then he followed until there was big patch of spikes behind Toriel. Joe didn't know what to say, but somewhat felt scared nonetheless. "* This is the puzzle but... Here, take my hand for a moment." Joe directly held her hand and followed her through the spike floor with no problem, although he still felt quite nervous throughout the whole thing. "* Puzzles seem a bit too dangerous for now." she said as she left for the next room. "Yeah... still not as dangerous as the type of shit father threw at me during training..." Joe thought.
"* You have done excellently thus far, old one." Toriel pointed out. "You think so...?" he wondered to himself.
"* However, I have a difficult request to ask you... I would like you to walk to the end of the room by yourself." she stated point blank. "That... should be no problem for me." he figured.
"* Forgive me for this."
Joe decided not to budge a bit until he lost sight of Toriel, then he walked straight for what maybe felt like 1? 2? or 3? minutes, he wasn't gonna stop until she came out of the pillar from the other side. "* Greetings, sir. Do not worry, I did not leave you. I was merely behind this pillar the whole time", exactly what Joe had figured. "* Thank you for trusting me. However, there was an important reason for this exercise.", before she started saying anything else, Joe said to her, "Independence? That's something I already figured out long ago."
"* Ah, I should have figured. Either way, I will give you this CELL PHONE.", she says as she hands an ancient looking phone over to Joe. She continued, "* There is some business I must attend to, and it can be dangerous to be exploring out on your own. If you need anything, just call."
"* Be safe out there, okay?" she asked Joe, then left. After about a minute of processing everything, he left as well.