Underearth/Book 4/Chapter 21

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Frisk's eyes snapped open. Everywhere around him was black, save a white point of light every now and then. The lone Human shot around every-which-way, trying to find any sign of where he was.

"CALM DOWN." the Timepiece eventually said. "RELAX, AND USE GRAVITY MAGIC TO GO TOWARDS THIS POINT OF LIGHT."

Even though the Timepiece didn't make a gesture towards any particular point, Frisk knew exactly which one it talked about. Focusing gravity magic around himself, Frisk lurched as he felt himself falling towards the point of light. After about a minute, the point of light became more defined, its shape becoming clearer and clearer. On closer inspection, Frisk recognized it to be a structure of some kind, his own mind going to a mansion, the color of which was an alabaster white.

"SLOW DOWN." the Timepiece said.

Frisk eased on the gravity magic, slowing himself enough to land on the structure's front wall without injuring himself.

"NOW, OPEN THE SOUL JAR."

"Open it?" Frisk asked, looking wearily down at the red SOUL contained within.

"YES."

Letting out a slow sigh, Frisk carefully opened the top of the jar. As soon as it opened, the SOUL flew out and hovered a short distance in front of Frisk. After a few seconds, the SOUL glowed a brighter red as stuff formed around it. As Frisk watched the stuff form, he recognized what was forming to be a body, specifically the body of Calibri. Once its formation had finished, Calibri opened his eyes, staring right at Frisk.

"I saw everything." he said. "Including... Chara, with LOV."

Stunned at this seemingly sudden change of heart, Frisk turned to the offensive. "What makes you so sure that was Chara?" he asked, his voice carrying acid. "After all, Chara's been dead for six hundred years."

Calibri raised his arms a bit. "Alright, I deserved that. To answer your question, though, there's a painting of Asriel and Chara in the Oldtown Palace."

"The Oldtown Palace?" Frisk asked, not exactly expecting a straight answer.

"Yeah, a building situated where the Elysian Palace *used* to be, before Asgore caused that it should be levitated up to where it is now. The Oldtown Palace is now more of a memorial to the dead heirs than a place people live, built to resemble the Elysian Palace in most every way."

"So, that's it then. After you killed me a few times, then yourself, we're just best buds?"

Calibri looked down at Frisk. "I mean, isn't that kind of how it went with Undyne some time ago? No wait, that's right. You two hung out first. We'll jump to that, then. Let's see, with both Papyrus and Undyne, you mostly talked and learned some stuff regarding this world, so let's go with that. Ask some questions, and I'll do my best to answer them." Calibri sat down on the wall.

"Wh—What?"

"I'm not gonna try to kill you, guess we should start with that. Next up, I guess I should say that I'm sorry for not believing you when you said Chara had taken LOV and was planning to destroy Humanity with it. But then that begs the question, if she seeks to destroy Humanity, has she gotten enough power to destroy the Barrier? If so, why sit around and wait for you to arrive instead of beginning her quest to eradicate Humanity? If not, why sit around and wait for you to arrive instead of continuing to slaughter Monsters to grow in power."

"Would you slow down for a second?" Frisk said, trying to cut into Calibri's conversation with himself.

Calibri looked up at him. "Oh, sorry. Got carried away."

"You said you'd answer questions?"

"Yup."

Frisk took a deep breath. "What is LOV?"

Calibri's jaw dropped open. "You mean... Sans never told you?"

"He said something about LOVE, but since you pronounce the O like you do, I'm starting to get a feeling that... they're two different things."

"They are. LOVE is a metric used by the judiciaries of the Monster Kingdom when sentencing. In this case, both EXP; EXecution Points, and LOVE; Levels Of ViolencE, go hand-in-hand in determining which criminal punishment should be placed on the guilty party.

"LOV, however, is something completely different. While watching Sans preform his judicial duties to the Throne, I found that every now and then, a murderous Monster would come in with... something attached to their SOUL. At the time, I signaled to Sans to let me take the first few with me to study. These things were incredibly weak, but I found that it seemed to... feed on the SOUL's SOUL TRAITs, two seeming to be its preferred choice, KINDNESS and INTEGRITY. It didn't consume DETERMINATION, though, instead creating it as a waste product. On later subjects, I found that a magic type that Sans was good at, karma magic, eradicated the LOV, along with the parts of the SOUL it was attached to. Seeing as LOV only grows on select individuals, I hypothesize that it must *come* from somewhere, like a disease, but I've yet to even prove if that's the case. The only thing I ever managed to confirm is that those with LOV wanted it to grow inside them."

"Why is it called LOV?" Frisk asked, hoping to divert from that train of thought.

Calibri chuckled to himself a bit. "Those brought in who had LOV growing on them were all serial killers. As such, they were given a higher LOVE. I thought it appropriate to base the name of this... stuff off the acronym. Ironic, too, which made it all the better."

"Yeah. So, how does the, LOVE metric work?" Frisk asked.

Calibri let out a small, short laugh. "I'm, uh, not exactly the legal expert here. I just know that there's a logic to it, I don't actually know the logic. Maybe, when you bring everybody back, you could ask Sans about it. He's more the legal expert."

It was Frisk's turn to laugh this time. "Really? That's a laugh."

"Oh yeah. Only he could figure out all the loopholes to operating six different jobs at the same time despite only being able to be in one place at a time." Calibri said.

They both laughed at the light-heartedness of the conversation. Finally, Frisk sat down on the wall as well.

"So Frisk," Calibri said. "if you don't mind me asking, what made you start hunting Monsters and growing LOV in the first place?"

Frisk's face turned as white as the mansion. "I... I..."

"If you don't want to be super precise, just give me the vaguest of answers. It may, at the very least, give me more information on LOV's origins than I have now."

Frisk thought for a bit. "Something... horrible happened to a friend of mine. I then died and I wanted the power to make it never happen again. LOV promised me that."

"I see... That doesn't really shed much light... tell me, what happened to your friend?"

Frisk's eyes went dark as his hand covered his mouth, the screams of anguish echoing inside his head.

"Frisk?" Calibri asked, leaning a little bit closer.

"I don't want to talk about it..."

Calibri tilted his head, his own mind deep in thought. After a few seconds, his eyes shifted back to Frisk. "What city did this happen in?"

Frisk looked back at Calibri. "A—Athens. Why?"

Calibri leaned away. "Ah..." he said informatively. He then took a deep breath before speaking again. "Yeah, that'd do it..."

"You know of Athens?"

"Yeah. Used to stop by more often, but I personally prefer Thebes over both Athens and Sparta. Much smaller and quieter."

"I've, never really been to either. At least recently."

"Back to what happened," Calibri said. "did it take place near that skyscraper that just screams 'I'm a criminal mastermind'?"

Frisk gave him a weird look. "There's no building I'd describe like that, no."

"Sure there is. It's the tallest building in the city, you can see it from almost anywhere."

Frisk thought about that for a second. "Oh!" he said after a bit, his face lighting up in revelation. "That building exploded about half a month ago. Collapsed to the ground after a series of explosions. Nobody took responsibility for it, but the news says it was a terrorist bombing. A bunch of other people think the Mad Man did it, though."

"The Mad Man?" Calibri asked.

"Some deranged lunatic. Burned down all the homeless shelters in the city a while ago for some reason."

"Strange..." Calibri's eyes began to drift as he slowly engulfed himself in waves of thought.

"Why were you asking about that building?" Frisk asked.

Calibri's eyes refocused on Frisk after a second. "No reason." he said quickly.

"I see..." Frisk said slowly, somewhat suspicious of his answer. After a bit, Frisk set his mind to a new question. "How do you know of the surface?"

"I thought it was obvious, I've been there." Calibri said with a matter-of-fact tone. "My SOUL has the strengths of a Human's, so it doesn't get stopped by the Barrier, unlike any Cursed SOUL. The surface is also the place I got that TAC-50 I shot you with a few times?"

"Wait, a few times? Is that what happened in the Hotlands?"

"As you approached the lab the first time? Yeah. Gonna be honest, though, I have *no idea* how you survived that shot. I blasted your arm off at the shoulder, yet you were still moving your head and other arm around even though the air pressure from the bullet should have sucked your eyes out and scrambled your brain."

Frisk shuttered as he imagined that happening.

"Alright," Calibri said, breaking the silence that had formed. "now for the million-dollar question. Back before we fought, you asked for my help to defeat Chara. I'm willing to help now. What's your attack-plan?"

Frisk looked at Calibri. "Uh..." he said. "I, uh... haven't really thought up one."

Calibri let out a heavy sigh. "Alright," he said. "let's think of something. What do we, or more accurately, you, know?"

"Um... She has LOV."

"Alright, that part's obvious. What else?"

Frisk thought harder, though barely anything was surfacing. "Uh..." he said, trying to fill the silence. "She's powerful."

"That seems to come with LOV."

"I don't know what else."

Calibri let out an even heavier sigh. "Oh boy, this is gonna be *great*. Alright, let's try working with that. LOV is extremely weak to karma magic. I'm... adept at it, so that's gonna have to do."

"Sounds great. What else do we need to do?"

Calibri stood up. "Well first and foremost, we need to *find* them. Can't exactly kill without facing what you're gonna kill in the first place."

"I don't want to kill them." Frisk said.

Calibri looked back. "Excuse me?"

"I said I don't want to kill Chara."

"Then what do you want to do?"

"I want to save her from LOV's control."

Calibri let out a scoffing laugh. "Oh, knight in shining armor," he said. "I don't think that's even possible."

"It is!" Frisk said, getting on his feet.

"And what makes you so sure of that?" Calibri asked.

"Because I was under LOV's influence before Chara tore it from me."

Calibri breathed in to argue more, but remained silent, bringing his hand to his lower lip. "Interesting..." he said. He then looked back up at Frisk. "Any idea how to do this?"

It was then Frisk's turn to retreat deep into thought. "... no, not really..." he said after a bit of silence.

Calibri sighed again. "Well, tell you what. We'll think about how to do what you're wanting to do while we find them."

"Alright." Frisk said. "Know where we should start looking?"

"Not a clue..."

"SEARCH THIS BUILDING." the Timepiece said.

"Why not start here? Go from the bottom floor all the way to the roof?" Frisk then asked.

Calibri looked back at Frisk. "Good a place to start as any."

Calibri walked down the wall to the front door, carefully flipping over so his feet connected with the "bottom" of the building.

"What the hell is with the gravity of this place, anyway?" Calibri mumbled to himself as he stepped inside.

Frisk, not wanting to be left behind, quickly followed him inside.