"Wow. I'm surprised you're still holding out." Ajax chuckled, grinning at Sans who was in so much pain, but he simply snarled in return despite feeling so weak and fragile. 

"yeah well, i actually have someone to fight for." Sans growled. "you... i bet you don't even have anyone who cares about you. you're someone who doesn't even deserve compassion." Sans said, his voice like venom. 

"I have got to admit, you got spunk." Ajax admitted. "But that won't save you here." Ajax cruelly laughed, going to continue to attack his soul.

****

Frisk frowned, continuing to crawl her way through the vent that she had been sent through by Undyne and Papyrus. She could no longer hear her two friends who had been calling down the vent towards her to know about what kind of progress she was making. She was pretty sure she was likely to end up in a different hallway to where their cell was. This was probably going to take a bit of sneaking around. 

She ended up at another vent opening, and to her luck the lid seemed loose. She checked through the small gaps to see if there was anyone out in the hallway before her. And seeing that it seemed clear, she decided to push her way out and she ended up in a long hallway with several doors lining it left and right. How was she supposed to find her way back to Undyne and Papyrus when this building was likely a maze? It was like Ajax just had his own organisation which no one seemed to even know about.

"Hey! How did you get out?!" Someone down the hall shouted at her to her dismay. She turned around in fear, seeing the figure of a man who was quite clearly armed. Frisk looked around, wanting to look for cover, but there was nothing she could hide behind. What was she supposed to do?! She was going to be shot and she was going to die here! 

Almost ready to just scream in fear, Frisk was surprised to see the armed man fall back in shock, as a fireball hit him that flew from over her shoulder. The man went to the floor, not being able to keep his balance and to Frisk's delight, one of her familiar friends had shown up to save her. 

"Grillby!" She called, as the man made of flame went to give one final blow to the human, wanting to make sure he was knocked out and was of no harm to him or Frisk. He turned towards her, giving her a small nod. "What are you doing here? How did you know we were taken?" 

"Gaster called me." Grillby explained calmly. "I heard he had been captured too, but he managed to get out of where he was being held. Listen, we need to find Undyne and Papyrus, then look for Gaster and save Sans." Grillby frowned with disgust. "I've heard about what Ajax has been doing to him, he's been making you guys listen to his screaming, huh?"

"Y-Yeah..." Frisk stammered, blinking back her own tears. She was surprised when the flame monster pulled her into a caring hug. It didn't even burn or hurt, he was simply just quite warm, warmer than the average human, but that was about it. 

"Do not worry, Frisk. We will save him. We won't allow Ajax to kill him, I can tell you that." He reassured her. Part of him truthfully was worried that perhaps they might not make it in time, as the soul of a monster was simply the weakest point. And if you knew that and attacked there, well then that monster was practically defenceless against you. But Grillby had fought in the war once, alongside his good friend Gaster. He had to be brave and put on a strong voice for Frisk as not to worry her about the condition of her loved one. "Let's get a move on." 

****

"Can you stop pacing? God damn, you're making me even more anxious." Undyne complained at the nervous Papyrus who was wringing his hands together. He was obviously worried about the safety of  their friend Frisk. She had been gone for a little while. What if something bad happened? What if someone saw she was missing and everyone went on a search to find her? 

"I'M JUST WORRIED ABOUT THE HUMAN, UNDYNE." 

"I know you are, punk! But I am too, and walking back and forth isn't going to make her come back any faster! So just sit down!" Undyne snapped, before regretting the way she acted. "S-Sorry... I shouldn't be getting angry at you, Papyrus. You're just scared. I understand." 

"IT'S OKAY, UNDYNE. YOU DON'T NEED TO APOLOGISE." Papyrus said, before he let out a gasp and pointed towards the bars of their cell, pointing towards something that he had seen. "THERE SHE IS! AND GRILLBY IS THERE TOO!" 

"Hey you two! Looks like we got more help!" Frisk smiled, gesturing towards Grillby who was turning his attention towards a keypad on the wall that was beside the cell. It looked like a key code combination had to be pressed into it to unlock the cell. But they had no password.

"Couldn't you just break it?" Undyne wondered when Grillby had pointed this out. He shook his head.

"Might not work. I'd rather not risk it." Grillby spoke. "We don't have a pass code. We might have to try and go looking for one, perhaps try to get information out of one of his buddies if we're going to--" 

"Grillby, look out!" Frisk warmed him, as another one of those humans was rushing towards them to attack with a gun in hand. He fired the gun aiming it towards Frisk, and Grillby did the only thing he could. He protected her by standing in front of her, the bullet just barely missing his torso and instead he had a hit to the shoulder. He grunted as the injury clearly hurt and he was about to raise his hand to shoot fire at this human, until he was taken down by a bone attack from behind. 

"Stay away from them!" A man's voice boomed, knocking the human down with anger, knocking him unconscious in a single blow. Gaster glared down at Ajax's minion, before glancing over to Grillby with a frown. He paced over towards him, seeing he was hurt.

"Oh, hey Gast. We were actually going to come looking for you." Grillby pointed out and Gaster rolled his eyes, going to look at the wound in his shoulder. 

"Well, you should be more careful. You're lucky that wasn't your head!" Gaster hissed. He sighed, shaking his head as his face softened. "Thanks for coming, friend. And for protecting Frisk." He said, going to use his healing magic to take care of Grillby's wound. 

"I came as soon as you called." Grillby told him.

"How did you even manage to get out anyway?" Undyne asked them through the bars. Gaster explained as he continued to tend carefully to Grillby's hurt shoulder.

"I managed to see the password for the cell when they locked me up. So I simply just escaped and called Grillby to back us up when I got out. I'm pretty sure the code is the same for all of them so, Frisk, can you please type 76589 into the keypad?" 

"Oh, of course!" Frisk nodded, going over to type in the code just like he had said. "7... 6... 5, 8... 9!" She clapped her hands excitedly when she saw the moment she entered the code, the cell that her two friends were locked in opened, no longer leaving them trapped. They were out! "It worked!" 

"It feels so good to be out of that cell!" Undyne cheered but Gaster sighed and looked to Undyne once he was done with Grillby. 

"Don't go celebrating yet. We may have to deal with a lot more obstacles along the way. And there's a chance he might try to use threats to stop us if he realises we got out." He said, looking at each of them carefully. "We have to be careful. That means no jumping in front of bullets." He said, narrowing his eyes at his flame friend. He was only being stern because this was a serious situation, and Grillby seemed to understand that as he just remained quiet. These two had fought together in the war between monsters and humans, so working together wasn't really an issue for them. Not to mention the fact that they were best friends, they'd look out for each other. 

"Alright then. Let's go save Sans."