Chapter Text
Dragging his hands across his face in a manner most exaggerated, Clover groaned as he walked out of school. He'd gotten a grand total of absolutely NOTHING done that entire study hall thanks to a very purple certain somebody. SERIOUSLY, WHAT, was her problem!? It was downright nonsensical levels of aggression! He'd done everything he could to make peace, literally everything! He even thought he was in the clear with their last fight!
She'd finally mellowed out for a moment, but... whatever, whatever! He had things to do! Like, finding Undyne!!
She should be leaving the school any moment really, so all he had to do was sit around and stake the place out. Although... it was a little difficult to do that in the swarming crowd of kids leaving for the day. There were only a few hundred monsters at best leaving school, but in that short burst, it was entirely possible for Undyne to simply be... gone. So, what was he to do...?
...
Turns out, a bird's eye view was, indeed, a pretty effective point of view. Had a good reputation for a reason it would seem. It hadn't taken Clover long at all, even sleep deprived as he was, to think it over. It wasn't like the school grounds were very exposed to the lava all about Hotland, so it was hardly even an issue for him at all on the mental side!
Clover could pick out a few faces, just hovering up in the air. He saw Kanako and Noelle making their jolly way out, saw his Geography teacher... actually, he could've gone without seeing her, he didn't really like her that much.
...He saw Domerian, MK, Matt... Susie... and yet... still no Undyne? Had she just not left yet? Had she maybe... slipped past his notice, somehow? He didn't think she'd be able to manage that, she had a pretty imposing figure... Not that she was always trying to be intimidating or anything, it's just... she was a big person. Not big enough to intimidate him, obviously, but big enough to be noticeable.
So the fact that he didn't notice her, clearly meant that she hadn't gone out yet! Obviously. But... why? Did she perhaps have some reason to stay inside after school had already ended? Surely she was a busy person as the Captain of The Royal Guard. Well, actually... wasn't she always out and about doing something completely unrelated to whatever a "guard" would be doing? Cause Clover could've sworn he'd never actually seen Undyne doing anything really... "guard" worthy...
What was up with that? Now that he really thought about it, what had his Mom done that was anything akin to guarding?
...She sat around Snowdin, she... sets up puzzles...
...Huh.
"Ah," he mumbled aloud, putting that thought on hold, there she was! With a very, very large jug. Now, he just had to be very, very gently, touch down...
...
"Alright, get pumped Undyne!" She whooped to herself before taking a massive gulp of water.
Good Lord it was BLISTERING out in the Hotland heat without any AC, but sometimes a little heat was necessary for good training. She'd never have agreed to sticking around in Hotland for any old reason, but the one recommended to her was one she could certainly get behind. If it sucked, why not treat it as training? She was going to have to get to the school either way, and it wasn't like she could take a boat all the way to it...
So then, why not just treat it like a jog? Not just any old jog of course, the jog from hell, every damn day, but still a jog! Now, the longer she spent out in the heat, the more likely she was to get heat stroke, time to-
"Undyne!"
"PFFFFF-"
"Er-sorry?'
"Holy-"
Pounding on her chest, Undyne coughed up the frankly unreasonable amount of water she'd stuffed down in such a short time, standing there, heaving for a moment.
"Uhhhh..."
"Ch... cripes kid! Anybody ever tell you not to sneak up on your elders?" Undyne half-yelled as she turned on a heel. "What are you even doing here... Clover?" She mumbled as she tilted her head, genuinely dumbfounded.
"Uh, heya?"
"...Weren't you supposed to be home sick?" Undyne's head rolled down just a little further as she uncapped her jug and poured a liter on herself.
"Well, I was," Clover nodded, giving the jug a curious glance before continuing. "But, 'm feeling much better now, so Mom had me catch the last... er, thirty minutes of school."
"Uh huh..." Undyne nodded slowly as she righted her posture. "Right, but you're here trying to scare the life out of me, why exactly?"
"Oh, well, given 'm a part of the Guard now, I figured I should go ahead and uh, ask you what exactly it is I should be doing as a member?" Clover offered lamely.
"Hah, well WHY didn't you SAY SO!?" Undyne laughed boisterously, before taking a a step forward to clap Clover on the shoulder, which he braced himself for...!
Wham!
And weathered perfectly! He didn't so much as budge!
"...But that's exactly what I did?"
"Semantics, semantics! Those in the Royal Guard don't DEAL in semantics, you get me kid!?" She roared, pouring another helping over herself as she raised her other hand into a fist.
"Right, right," Clover simply nodded.
"But, ah... as for what exactly you'd be doing? Well, kid, we won't ask that much of you, like I told you, you'll just be helping your Mom out. We can't ask too much of a growing kid after all!"
"Right, but... I want to do more!"
"Really now..." Undyne eyed him up and down, before splashing herself in the face. "Well, now's not really the time and place, but tell you what kid, come see me at my house in Waterfall and we can talk all about it! I'll be off duty in a few hours from now, as long as your Mom doesn't mind, you can come over and we'll talk." She offered, though it didn't really hold all that much weight.
The Guard was barely even there to fight in the first place, while they could fight, and they were DAMN GOOD at it, they were the symbol of hope for the Underground! Fighting was barely even their M.O! And Undyne got the feeling that fighting was what the kid was talking about. Which was all well and good, she could respect that, she could FEEL that! But... there just wasn't much of it to be had! And not like they'd let a kid do it as a first choice either way! But, having a good kid doing good work for the Guard if they're eager could be good... yeah, she could work with that!
"Okay! Oh and... by the way..." Clover started, before pausing.
"Yeah, what's up!?" Undyne flashed a toothy smile, before pouring yet another seconds worth.
"What's er, up with that bottle? Feels like there's a looooot of water in there."
"Ah, this little thing!?" Undyne's grin widened as she lifted it up to his face. "It's directly connected to a storage space! Tons of water in it! Literal tons! Makes for a GREAT weight! Oh and, also, you know, not dying of heat stroke."
"...Neat."
...
Clover was... nonplussed. He got the feeling his concerns weren't really being taken all that seriously. Sure, Undyne put on a nice smile, said they'd talk about it... but there was something else in her voice, something about her eyes. She... wasn't taking him that seriously. He was just a kid to her.
...His heart ached at the thought, raged out and demanded he hasten his work, that he ensured the fallen five were happy, okay at the very least... so very badly he wanted to fly to the castle right that second and let the consequences be damned. But... that wouldn't solve anything. Worst case scenario, he'd just get himself killed. And then what would he do? His friends, they'd be devastated, his Mom...
...Clover pulled out his phone.
Finding Susie's account was easy enough, the Underground was a small place. She hadn't exactly left him a way to contact her, but he definitely felt like letting his anger out on something, anything. The damn brat who was so eager for a beating would do.
Clover-2:57 PM
"You said any time, any place. Waterfall, near the free use umbrellas, in thirty minutes."
FaceEater-2:58 PM
"You're on jackass. I can make it in forty."
Clover, however, could make it in five. The power of flight was a thing of great power indeed.
...
Landing however, was less so. It was still a rough, shaky process, and the whole process of touching down could be likened moreso to... falling down. In the less catastrophic continuity, of course. This is all to say-
"Dah-"
That, apparently, as it's all he could manage as his beak hit the dirt.
He lay there for a moment, contemplating his own lack of skill, before mumbling "hwap..." into the dirt and pushing himself up with a small burst of magic. It was easy enough to do, and good practice for controlling his general abilities, so...
"M'kay..." He mumbled once again, scratching at the back of his head.
...How was he going to go about this?
...
With a hop, a skip, and a WHAM!
"...Fwap." Clover mumbled into the dirt, before channeling just a bit of magic into his wings before they burned away, pushing himself up and out of the dirt in a spray of brown.
"Bleh," he halfheartedly joked, before standing up straight and stretching out. Flying was still a delicate process, especially the landing. It made his back hurt a little bit, and made his body hurt a lot a bit when he crash landed like that, but... given it wasn't on concrete, he probably didn't have much room to complain.
...He breathed in, and out. It was familiar, calming. He liked Waterfall, he really did. He had a lot of good memories in this place, mostly with his Mom, but he'd enjoyed walking through it with his friends, too. Perhaps that was why he'd decided to choose this place for a fight.
...Was this really what he wanted to do?
Clover closed his eyes, and sat down. The ground was wet, but nothing that wouldn't dry out with issue. He had to do laundry later anyways, so it was of no concern.
Why was Susie so... dead set on antagonizing him? It wasn't like Clover had ever done anything to her, he'd just... shown up one day. Was being friends with Kanako and Noelle really enough to condemn him to the role of a villain in her eyes? Or was it for some entirely different reason? Could there be another way to resolve this, rather than violence?
...It wasn't that he was afraid of a fight, no-to be perfectly clear, what Clover was afraid of was kicking that stupid lizard's behind so hard she'd go flying through the roof of the Underground, making new ground and freeing all of Monsterkind without the need for any Souls... well actually, when he thought of it that way, it might not be so bad, but that was quite besides the point. But... did they need to fight?
...He breathed in again, and reached for his hat, pulling it down to his chest, feathers gently stroking against the worn and aged leather.
Was this... really the right thing to do?
He laid down, breathing out, looking up at the fake stars painting the limits of Monsterkind's cage.
Why did it always fall down to him?
There was no way he could just run away from it all, not with what was on the line. But it was tempting, to run away, to stay at home. After all, he didn't owe anybody anything, did he?
Hat over chest, hand over hat, he sighed wistfully as he closed his eyes again, whilst the bells tolled ever closer.