Winter break was always relaxing.
"Linde! You idiot! Your oven's about to explode again!"
The eleven-year-old girl's battered ribbon had slipped sideways over her ear, and she was still holding a smoking cookie mold.
The twelve-year-old boy emerged from a heap of parts, his hair a bird's nest. "Nonsense! It'll definitely work this time! I added snake bile to the Soulfire powder..."
"Gross!-" Frisk hurried over to cover his mouth, and the two of them landed with a thud in the pie Toriel had just baked.
"Ahem." Covered in cream, Linde and Frisk looked nervously at Toriel.
"Sorry... Mom... We'll clean it up."
Toriel sighed helplessly.
These two children really do have a knack for wrecking things. How did I never notice before...?
Oh, well. What's one more time?
"Hurry back to your own dorm rooms and wash yourselves off. As for the pie, I'll make another one."
Carlret looked up from his book nearby and raised an eyebrow. "Honestly, what madness. Sealing the power of a Soul Formula inside cookies-what on earth were they thinking?"
It had all started three days earlier.
While the other teachers were enjoying winter break, our duo of child geniuses had taken on a "super awesome" assignment-
Developing special food that could withstand blizzards!
Linde had declared that he would use "the power of science" to seal Soul Fire inside cookies, and so his research had begun.
Linde crouched in front of his homemade Soul-Energy Oven, energy from his Determination flickering around his arms like tiny light bulbs. "This thing is accurate to within 0.01 degrees..."
"Stop bragging! We all know already!" Frisk pressed her chilly little hands against his neck. Startled, Linde jerked both hands back, and crimson light swept across the control panel.
The Soul-Power Measuring Device shrieked with repeated beeps, and