Hornet vs. Undyne | B&B BATTLE BLOGS!

(NinetailsSaturn)

(JackyTheWannabe)


Undyne, Captain of the Royal Guard and protector of the Underground.


Hornet, Daughter of Hollownest and Saviour of Pharloom.


How far would you go to protect the people you care about, the place that you love? Would you hurt and kill others? Would you sacrifice yourself for the greater good? Would you go further beyond what you thought you could reach? Though both their homes have seen better days, these two still muster the will to fight on, to look towards a better tomorrow, for themselves or for the people of the world. In a fight between two guardians of dying kingdoms, who will manage to come out the victor? Time to find out, on a Death Battle Blog!!



Before we begin…


We will be looking at all canon media for these two characters. For Hornet, this includes the original Hollow Knight and its sequel, Hollow Knight: Silksong, as well as certain social media posts from Team Cherry that add further context to the world and setting. For Undyne, we’ll be looking at the original Undertale and its 10th anniversary stream which adds extra information and feats. 


We’ll also be taking a look at Deltarune just to round things out, although given that is a very different Undyne, and Deltarune works on a different power system with no explicitly-confirmed connections to Undertale (yet, anyway), we won’t be using scaling from them. Undyne doesn’t do anything relevant in Deltarune yet anyway, so it’s kind of a moot point there.


Special thanks goes out to:

  • Vs Battles Wiki (For many of the calculations used in this blog)

  • U/gooldiddy (For many of the calculations used in this blog)

  • U/rangernumberx (For their Undyne respect thread)

  • Toxin’s VS Corner (for giving us an idea for how to work with Hollow Knight Sizes)

  • Team Cherry and Toby Fox’s team (For creating some of the most influential indie games of our generation) 


Before we move on, though, there is one more consideration we made for this blog.

Hollow Knight Sizes 

The size of Hollow Knight characters has always been a point of contention with powerscaling, given that it affects basically every feat in the setting besides arguments for cosmic-level feats that we… will talk about momentarily. Some argue them to be bugs, some argue for them to be around 50 centimeters based on Hornet’s 30 yards scaling, some argue that we should treat them as human-sized. While there’s no concrete information, Team Cherry’s post does seem to suggest that Hallownest uses human-sized measurements, or at least can be quantified in them. 


So exactly how big is Hornet? Well, it’s hard to say exactly, but for the purposes of this blog, we took a page from Toxin’s Vs Corner’s Ori VS. The Knight blog (Huge shout out to them by the way). To summarize, the Knight would likely be around 2-4 feet tall by scaling it to the Delicate Flower, which is clearly based on a real-life Chrysanthemum. Just like Toxin’s team, we decided to assume a height of 3 feet for the Knight, which by pixel scaling would give Hornet a height of 3.68 feet. This was the result we used for the blog’s calculations, and we believe this is enough of a height to make the debate more than just “Undyne has to fight a random bug one day”.


Ultimately, you’re free to disagree with this or make alternate interpretations. There really is no one right answer, but we felt that this size was a fair and realistic measurement given the scale of the games in question, and calculations will be made with this height in mind. 


Background

Hornet

“I have survived the fury of your land. I have borne its barbs and its blades, and I have seen wonder behind its dangers. But always, child, I remain a daughter of Hallownest. And the void below all things, that darkness I will fear no longer…”


In a land far away, past windswept wastelands and deep caverns, lies the ruins of an underground kingdom of bugs: Hallownest. Once a grand metropolis ruled by a higher being known only as the Pale King, Hallownest fell to ruin by an infection of light that appeared within the dreams of its bugs and drove them mad. Today, the husk of the ancient kingdom and its treasures lie waiting for any travelers willing to brave its diseased depths. But be warned - For if you come seeking to desecrate the kingdom, it’s likely you’ll meet a swift end by the needle of Hallownest’s princess and protector: Hornet.


Before Hornet was even born, her Mother Herrah, the queen of Deepnest’s Weavers, was approached by the Pale King with an offer. In exchange for bearing the Pale King’s child, Herrah would become a Dreamer, placed forever in an eternal sleep that would seal the infection and keep it at bay. That child was Hornet. Though the young weaver was permitted precious little time with her mother, Herrah used what moments they had to inspire in her a hope to carve her own path and choose her own destiny. After that, Hornet was raised by the Pale King and his own mate, the White Lady, and trained in combat by queen Vespa of the neighboring Hive kingdom, from whom she received her name and deadly skill.


Long after the kingdom fell, Hornet remained in Hallownest for ages, protecting it from intruders as a sentinel… up until a curious traveler caught her eye: a Vessel, her own half-sibling created artificially by the Pale King in hopes of creating a Knight that could contain the infection. The other Vessels had failed, but Hornet found a different kind of resilience in this knight, which could possess the strength to do what the rest could not. And so, she joined the Vessel, guiding it and testing its strength in equal measure. 


The Knight ventured into the depths of Hallownest and found the Void, its very birthplace, and bathed itself in the power of the darkness lying within, and together, it and Hornet defeated the Hollow Knight, the previous Vessel for the infection. While Hornet held off the Hollow Knight’s body, the Knight ventured into its dreams and defeated The Radiance, the source of the infection, casting off its shell to become a higher being of its own that drowned out the Radiance’s light in darkness.


When the battle was over and all was said and done, Hornet was left with the Knight’s broken mask and the ruined kingdom now free of the infection, but nonetheless beyond saving. Now truly alone without her family or her people, perhaps it would always be her fate to stand guard over Hallownest, in a sense becoming its new queen by proxy… 


…Unfortunately for Hornet, fate had other plans. When she was suddenly captured by Veiled bugs and brought far away from her home to the kingdom of Pharloom, she was suddenly a stranger in a hostile land, bound not by an infection but a curse brought on by its own monarch. Breaking free of her prison but weakened by the efforts, Hornet resolved herself to venture through this haunted kingdom, in which she met a child made entirely of silk known as Lace. The two crossed blades and paths repeatedly across Hornet’s journey through Pharloom, in which she spent as much time helping the downtrodden bugs of Pharloom as she did venturing through its wilds.


A far cry from the Pale King’s attempts to maintain a prosperous and connected kingdom for all bugs under his rule, Pharloom’s ruler, Grand Mother Silk, was a ruthless tyrant who ruined the lands as she pleased, polluting it and enslaving its populace all in the service of her own golden citadel. Even Lace, Silk’s daughter, was created just to be a loyal extension of Silk’s will, never acknowledged for her efforts. It was through this journey that Hornet learned the truth - The weavers, her very own kind, were themselves the creations of the Mother, having fled Pharloom to avoid her Wrath. That was why she had been captured - Silk wanted Hornet’s power, wanted her property back. She wished to Dominate and rule over everything absolutely, a feeling that Hornet could always feel welling up within her. But even gods can fall - Hornet knew this from experience. So, with the help of shamans across Pharloom, she crafted a snare to restrain Silk and drag her deep into the Abyss. 


All was set to succeed, until Silk grabbed Hornet, intent on taking her killer with her. It was only through Lace’s sudden intervention that Hornet was freed from her grasp, with Lace being dragged inside with the queen. Something that should have spelled the end for both, but Silk raged against the Void, fighting back against it by spinning a cocoon with her and Lace inside to protect herself and her daughter. Her struggles caused the Void to rampage across Pharloom and infect many of its citizens - Hornet had seen one kingdom fall, and she was about to be the inadvertent cause of another.


Never again.


Recruiting the shamans that crafted the snare in the first place, Hornet collected the hearts of old warriors of Pharloom, venturing into their dreams much like her sibling before her and gathering their power to create the Everbloom, a delicate flower from her own memories that could resist the pull of the Void. And she dove into the darkness. She reached out, and even though Lace was corrupted by the very void that had slain gods before, she freed her, Silk giving the last of her strength to propel the two back upwards through the void as the cocoon crashed around them. 


Even so, as the Everbloom’s power gave out, it seemed that all was lost, that Hornet was just another victim of the darkness… Until she came face to face with the Knight and the rest of her siblings. One final push from the lord of the void washed them up on the shores of Pharloom as it receded, leaving Hornet no longer alone, no longer the sentinel for a dying husk. With Lace, she had someone to protect in the here and now.


Hornet was never able to save Hallownest, and time and time again, the world around her tried to tell her her own destiny. To prove herself more weaver than worm, to kill a monarch and take her place. But with Lace and Pharloom saved, freed of the influence of higher beings, she finally lived up to the one wish she carried through her whole life from those who birthed and raised her: Strength in mind, in care, and in claw. Strength enough that she could craft the future she wanted, and live to see a world better than her own. And as long as Hornet has the strength to bear her needle, she’ll always wield it to carve a path to a better future.



Undyne

“No, you know what? SCREW IT! WHY SHOULD I TELL THAT STORY WHEN YOU'RE ABOUT TO DIE!?! NGAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”


Long ago, two races ruled over the earth, dividing its landmass; a race of humans, and a race of monsters. These two sides could not be at peace forever. As it does all the time; war started between the two races. The war was brutal, with countless monsters perishing and not a single human SOUL being taken in the process. This would not be a fight that the monsters would win. The humans, victorious in their conquest, would seal the monsters away underground, underneath a mountain known as Mt. Ebott. The greatest wizards of the time formed a barrier so that they could never escape. The only way to break out was to gather seven human souls, and for one monster to absorb them all, becoming like a god, but how likely was that, really? It seemed, for a while, monsterkind lost hope…


Many years later, the monsters continued to survive, but not thrive. A shell of what they used to be, they had found a renewed hope after all these years. Six of the human souls needed to break the barrier had been collected, though by regretful means. A bit of blood spilled is worth it for a chance at freedom, was it not? These souls were gathered by monster king Asgore, who took the lives of humans who fell into Mt. Ebott over the countless years they had been stuck underground. This would not come without some sacrifice, and Asgore would lose the love of his wife, Toriel, in the process, turning him into a shut-in.


But, he was not alone, for what is a king without his Royal Guard, and what is a Royal Guard without their captain? The armed forces of monsterkind were led by one woman; Undyne.


Undyne grew up in the Underground as a small monster with big goals, one of which being to challenge the king himself. She would be promptly humiliated, unable to land a single hit. Though her efforts wouldn’t go unappreciated, and Asgore would take her under his wing, teaching her how to fight, and later becoming Captain of the Royal Guard, thanks to her passion, willingness to learn, and her determination.


She wouldn’t be alone, either. With her trainee, Papyrus, under her wing, and the Royal Scientist, Alphys, constantly showing her inspiring anime for her to live up to, she would have friends who would support her along the way. She would become inspired to gather the seventh human soul, deliver it to Asgore, and finally break their decades of solitude under Mt. Ebott. With all of monsterkind’s hearts beating as one, she would face down this seventh human!


Only for her to… lose. Though she put up a good fight, the human would be too slippery, taking her on a run all the way from Waterfall to Hotland, where her armor got the better of her. There, in the scorching heats of the Underground, she was at the humans mercy, only for them to spare her. A small splash of water was all it took for Undyne to change her perspective on the human entirely. Maybe they weren’t all bad. Or, at the very least, the death of one human could be prevented, for now.


But, let’s say that the human was not so kind, not so friendly. What if they weren’t willing to play along with the Underground’s friendly, eclectic cast? In this timeline, the human chooses genocide over pacifism, and leaves a trail of dust through the Underground, leaving houses empty and families to grieve over what they’ve done. Walking through Waterfall, this human would come across a young monster, thinking them to be friends.


The monster was just another obstacle to be cut down.


Before the human could kill the monster child, Undyne steps in, intercepting the attack. In one slice, she’s brought to death’s door, but in this timeline, she realizes something about the human; it won’t stop at the monsters. This was bigger than her, bigger than monsterkind. She knew in her soul that the genocide would not stop with monsters. She could feel everyone’s hearts joining as one, her DETERMINATION flowing, she would not lose! She would become something more, something Undying!


With the power of the Undying, the power of DETERMINATION, Undyne would be able to put up a good fight against the human. She’d be tricky, tougher than anything the human went up against up to that point, but it wouldn’t be enough. She would be struck down like the rest of them. Despite this, she did what she needed to. She would distract the human for long enough for the Underground to be evacuated, for defenses to be made. Undyne, a true hero, would die with a smile on her face, knowing that she had done well…


But this isn’t that timeline. 


The human goes through the Underground with pacifism in their heart, and Undyne realized that she didn’t want to fight them. Though this human held the last piece for monsterkind, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. In this human, she found a friend. They cooked with her, played piano, and even helped her and Alphys get together. The human went through the Underground not just with Undyne at their side, but everyone!


As the human approached the end of their journey, Flowey would make himself known, and reveal his true self; Asriel, the long dead prince of the monster. With the six human SOULs, he absorbed every monster in the underground into himself, Undyne included. Despite this, the human was able to reach out to her, to call her back from the brink of oblivion. It was her friendship, along with the others, that empowered the human, gave them the will to carry on. With everyone’s hearts combined for one single purpose, there was only one way for this to conclude.


The prince is pacified, and with one final act of kindness, he shatters the barrier. All of monsterkind is free once again, and they move to the surface with a new hope, the human as their ambassador to humanity. Undyne had found a way to free monsterkind after all, just not in the way she was expecting. Whether it be facing a genocidal maniac, or uniting under one cause to stop the God of Hyperdeath, Undyne was, and always will be, a True Hero.


Skill & Experience 

Hornet

"I've found those who claim themselves a god can rarely match the title. And experience tells me even gods can fall.”


Having been trained by Queen Vespa of the hive and absorbed the crests (And thus, memories and fighting skills) of no less than six other warrior bugs, it’s no surprise that Hornet is an extremely skilled fighter.


Hornet is an adept combatant with her needle and silk, able to use her weapon not only as a spear or sword, but as a grappling hook, wrapping it around small targets to propel herself towards them or just swing around buildings like spider-man (get it? Cause she’s a spider?). Her stance and movements are such that other trained warriors can all notice the same thing, something that Hornet returns in kind, as she’s also able to sense another person’s skill just from being around them, likely through the same means. She also learns incredibly quickly, being able to master the Needle Strike skill after a single training session and even copy the moves of other fighters mid-battle, like Phantom’s cross-stitch. 


As seen in the Carnival games and across her journey through Pharloom, Hornet’s control over her blade and body is enough to bounce off of obstacles and enemies by striking them, reflect projectiles back to sender, scale entire mountains without climbing equipment, and take down other incredibly agile and skilled opponents like Lace and Shakra, who can move fast enough to completely disappear from Hornet’s vision, or Phantom, who can teleport and obscure the battlefield with steam to block her sight.


Beyond being a gifted swordsman, Hornet is no less deadly at a range. Even Team Cherry’s official twitter states she can strike down foes with her needle from thirty yards away. She’s won games of accuracy like knife-throwing, and can even pick up and effectively fight with weapons like boomerangs, bombs and guns despite never having used them before. But it isn’t just projectiles - Using her silk, Hornet is able to effectively set traps in the battlefield by stitching them into the air with silk threads, limiting her opponent’s room to maneuver.


Even without her needles and tools, however, Hornet is no less dangerous or crafty. She’s a tracker and a huntress who moves without a single sound, is constantly writing down information about her foes, and can track the paths of other bugs even through the air to locate them all across Pharloom. When she was captured by the veiled bugs, she immediately took advantage of the protection around her cage fading to use her silk to destroy the bridge they were carrying her across and free herself, and when it happened again and she found herself in the Slab without her equipment, she broke the cage by swinging her body to dislodge the chain holding it up, snuck and fought her way unarmed through the entire prison, and snapped the neck of the warden who had taken her equipment like some sort of bug ninja, showing that even if you strip her of everything she has, the daughter of Hallownest is a force to be reckoned with.


Undyne

“En Garde!”


Throughout her life, Undyne had been looking for ways to prove herself and to constantly get better at fighting, and to be the monster who would protect the Underground in times of peril. She didn’t become Captain of the Royal Guard on sheer chance, after all. Undyne has been training ever since she was a child. Not only was she training, but she was being mentored by Asgore, the greatest fighter the monsters have ever seen. Not only was he himself on the front lines of the Human-Monster war, but he’s been living and training ever since. Once in the Underground, he’s even managed to kill 6 humans. Impressive, when you consider that no human had died in the war between humans and monsters. Under Asgore’s tutelage, it’s not a stretch to say that Undyne has proven herself to be the best fighter in the kingdom, second only to him.


It’s unknown how much fighting Undyne has actually done throughout her life, though, as the Underground is a relatively peaceful place when humans are not around, but she also trains members of the royal guard, such as Papyrus, personally, so even if she doesn’t get into many conflicts, she’s certainly been training for a long time. Makes sense for someone who takes her job as seriously as she does. She is also surprisingly good at hiding, and during several sequences in Waterfall, she uses shadows and the environment around her to get the jump on Frisk, often without them noticing. 


Equipment 

Hornet

Needle

 

“The blade was a gift, given by a noble tribe of my homeland. They forged the strongest steel, though it was rarely seen beyond their hive.”


Hornet’s signature weapon, a hybrid sword, spear, and sewing implement. It was created by the Hive that hornet trained in, with its upgrades even revealing the hivesteel pattern of hexagons on the surface. It’s an incredibly versatile weapon that Hornet wields like a master, with the ring on the bottom of it being used to attach her silk to it and manipulate it like a grappling hook or a long-ranged weapon that can hit foes from 30 yards away. It’s incredibly durable, being able to withstand being dipped in poison and even heated to red-hot temperatures by her tools without corroding, and it’s lasted her since Hallownest still stood.


When Hornet went to Pharloom, she had it further upgraded and sharpened with Pale Oil, with the strongest form of the needle being the Pale Steel Needle that hits with more than four times the damage of her base nail.


Cloak


Originally a mere article of clothing, Hornet has had her cloak enhanced and upgraded during her time in Pharloom. It began as the simple Hunter’s Cloak, a simple protective garb that Hornet weaved herself, and was first reinforced into the Drifter’s cloak, lining it with flexible spines that allow Hornet to float around like an umbrella and shoot upwards if she can find any powerful wind currents. Later, when Hornet scaled to the top of Mount Fay, the creature at the top of the mountain turned it into the Faydown Cloak, lined with warm down that protects her from freezing cold and allows her to double jump by briefly creating wings of light, further increasing her already significant mobility.

Tools 


It isn’t just cloak and needle that Hornet goes into battle with. Over her time in both Hallownest and Pharloom, Hornet has picked up and created plenty of tools to aid her in battle, ranging from weapons to defensive options to passive trinkets that help her out when exploring. With her trusty Crafting Kit and Tool Pouch, Hornet can replenish these at her leisure while resting, and she carries no less than 53 different tools, split into three categories.


Red Tools: Weapons like bombs, boomerangs, and throwing knives. These tools are directly used in combat as an active part of her arsenal. Hornet has 19 red tools in total, including:

  • Straight Pin: A simple throwing pin, thrown in a straight line.

  • Threefold Pin: Pins thrown in sets of 3, which are thrown in a fanning pattern.

  • Sting Shard: Floating balls of spikes suspended by silk in the air. When struck, or when an enemy gets close, they burst outward into several razor points.

  • Tacks: Throwing tacks that can be spread across the ground like caltrops and hurt enemies who step on them.

  • Longpin: A special weighted pin thrown in an arc. It can pierce through shells and shields that the needle can’t.

  • Curveclaw: A curved claw that’s thrown like a boomerang. Later replaced by the Curvesickle, an upgrade that’s larger and more damaging.

  • Throwing Ring: Throwing rings used by Hornet’s friend and cartographer Shakra, thes rings can be thrown and will ricochet off of enemies and walls.

  • Pimpillo: A fabric pouch filled with volatile material, which explodes after a brief time, or when it comes into contact with an enemy.

  • Conchcutter: A spiral-shaped throwing lance made from coral. When thrown, it also ricochets off of walls and hits heavily.

  • Silkshot: A special weapon, an ancient tool of the Weavers. Depending on who Hornet had repair this weapon it has different properties, but across all of them, it draws on Hornet’s own silk to fire, and uses shell canisters to hold it.

    • Hornet: Hornet’s own variant shoots a powerful piercing beam, like a Railgun.

    • Twelfth Architect: Repaired by an architect of the Citadel, it fires a burst of three shots.

    • Forge Daughter: Repaired by a forgemaster of the Deep Docks, it fires a fast, single projectile.

  • Delver’s Drill: A drill that Hornet uses by slamming downward onto foes, inflicting great damage from above.

  • Cogwork Wheel: A sawblade that, when tossed, shoots along the ground, even traveling up walls to strike enemies.

  • Cogfly: The most overpowered tool in Hornet’s arsenal, the Cogfly is a set of drones that will autonomously fly around and attack enemies by ramming them. She can have up to four cogflies out at a time.

  • Voltvessels: A pair of orbs containing electricity from a Voltvyrm inside. These orbs can be attached to a stake and thrown, releasing a massive lightning bolt on impact, or converted into a pair of bolas to discharge lightning. Obviously, this electricity spreads fast when released in water.

  • Rosary Cannon: An actual fucking gun, this cannon is powered by Rosaries, the currency of Pharloom, and fires them out at a rapid rate like a machinegun.

  • Flintslate: A burning-hot sharpening stone made out of a perpetually-ablaze flintgem. Striking her needle across this superheats her needle’s blade to increase its damage and causing enemies to ignite if she hits them enough times.

  • Snare Setter: A special ancient tool made by the Weavers, just like the Silkshot. This tool places a silk rune on the ground, that when touched, ignites in a burst of white light. It’s exceptionally powerful, although it was later given to the Snail Shaman in order to ensnare Grand Mother Silk, and she never got it back after that.

  • Flea Brew: A special drink made by Grishkin of the Flea Caravan. Despite its innocuous appearance, this bubbling brew dramatically increases both the speed of Hornet’s movements and attacks. When enhanced with the Pollip Pouch, it also generates a cloud of poison around Hornet.

  • Plasmium Phial: A phial filled with Lifeblood, or Plasmium as Pharloom calls it, given to her by an alchemist. Thanks to that alchemist’s heart also being in her possession, Hornet can refill this whenever she rests. Injecting Lifeblood into herself gives her a temporary stock of extra life that can take more hits for her, although injecting too much can cause her to overdose, converting her entire lifeforce and preventing her from healing.



Blue Tools give Passive buffs that do things like provide barriers or enhance her red tools with poison, giving her extra options just by equipping them. Hornet has 21 red tools in total, including:

  • Druid’s Eyes: An amulet of protection given to her by a druid, made from mossberries. When Hornet takes damage while wearing this charm, it secretes a green elixir that turns into extra Silk for her.

  • Magma Bell: An iron bell made for the fires and magma of the Deep Docks, which not only protects against fire attacks like those of the Father of the Flame, but lets her resist the intense heat of magma.

  • Warding Bell: A holy bell inscribed with a hymn of protection. When Hornet is binding silk, this bell creates a shield around her to prevent damage while healing.

  • Pollip Pouch: A pouch containing the poison from a flower, which equips all of her tools with poison to further damage enemies over time. This poison is highly effective, being able to synergize with her tools in interesting ways like turning the Flea Brew into a poison cloud, and it can work not only on bugs, but clockwork robots like the Second Sentinel, higher beings like Grand Mother Silk, and even beings made of pure silk like Lace and Phantom. 

  • Fractured Mask: The old, cracked skull of a bug. It shields against a hit that would otherwise kill Hornet, but only once before breaking. However, she can repair it by resting at a bench.

  • Multibinder: A spindle of weaver design, which can only be used by silk weavers. Hornet can use this to heal herself by greater amounts, but it’ll take longer to do so.

  • Weavelight: An ancient weaver design, which increases the speed at which Hornet regenerates silk.

  • Sawtooth Circlet: A belt made of serrated teeth, like a chainsaw’s chain. Hornet affixes this to her cloak’s hem, and by jumping with it, it spins the blades and damages nearby enemies.

  • Injector Band: A brace of surgical pins from Whiteward, the surgical district of the citadel. It was made to forcibly inject silk into bugs as part of the citadel’s experiments, but Hornet can use it to bind silk faster.

  • Spool Extender: A tool of the citadel that stores Silk. Equipping it gives Hornet an extra unit of Silk that she can equip.

  • Reserve Bind: A tool of the citadel that holds a reserve of Silk and replenishes itself when Hornet rests at a bench. Whenever Hornet’s out of silk, this bind will give her enough to bind it again.

  • Claw Mirrors: The twin mirrors from Trobbio, a theatrical performer bug of the Citadel. When Hornet binds silk, it emits a blinding flash of sparkles around her that damages enemies getting too close.

  • Memory Crystal: A stone from Mount Fay, which has mnemonic properties. This crystal allows Hornet to form a crystalline clone of herself in her place whenever she takes damage, which explodes into sharp shards when touched.

  • Snitch Pick: A pick attached to Hornet’s needle. When she throws it and grapples onto an enemy, she can steal some of their shell shards and rosary beads.

  • Volt Filament: The organ of a Voltvyrm from the Sands of Karak. Hornet coils this around her silk, adding an electric charge to her silk skills.

  • Quick Sling: A mechanism made of bones and reeds, from the polluted swamp of Blighttown- I mean Bilewater. It allows Hornet to throw out double the tools at once.

  • Wreath of Purity: A fragile wreath made of leaves and reeds, found in the putrefied ducts above Bilewater. It doesn’t last forever, but it protects Hornet from the muckmaggots and polluted waters of places like the ducts.

  • Longclaw: A claw made from the talon of a large predator, given to Hornet by Huntress in exchange for plenty of insect organs. It increases the range of her needle strikes.

  • Wispfire Lantern: A wispfire-filled lantern from the Wisp Thicket. It converts Hornet’s silk into wisps made of flame, which home in on enemies and burst into fire on impact.

  • Egg of Flealia: An icon passed down through the Flea Caravan and given to Hornet after she found all the lost fleas. When her health is full, it decreases the cost of silk skills by 25%.

  • Pin Badge: The emblem of the pinstresses of Pharloom. It reduces the charge time of her needle strike technique.


Yellow Tools are Utility tools that don’t typically provide a bonus to combat, but still may provide some other useful advantage. Hornet has 13 yellow tools in total, including:

  • Compass: A simple compass provided by Shakra that lets Hornet find her way through Pharloom’s twisting tunnels.

  • Shard Pendant: A trinket that lets Hornet collect more shards from defeated creatures.

  • Magnetite Brooch: A holy stone made of Magnetite, which draws in rosaries towards her via Magnetism.

  • Weighted Belt: A heavy, weighted belt around Hornet’s waist, that lessens recoil from her own strikes, and knockback from taking damage.

  • Barbed Bracelet: A thorned, vicious bracelet of barbed wire, that increases the damage hornet takes, but also the damage she does.

  • Dead Bug’s Purse: The purse of an unfortunate bug lost in the wormways, which lets Hornet retain some rosaries when defeated instead of losing them all.

  • Shell Satchel: A container carved out of an old shell, which increases the quantity of tools Hornet can craft.

  • Magnetite Dice: A set of magnetite playing dice, won in a gamble. Despite their innocuous appearance, they shield Hornet from a hit every once in a while, even from someone as powerful as Grand Mother Silk. They also increase the critical hit rate of the Wanderer’s crest strikes.

  • Scuttlebrace: SKEDADDLE

  • Ascendant’s Grip: A gold-covered Piton, which Hornet can use to cling to walls and hold herself in place. 

  • Spider Strings: A weaver harp that resonates with nearby music to amplify her performance, increasing the range of the Needolin.

  • Silkspeed Anklets: Weaver-made anklets that draws on Hornet’s silk to dramatically increase her sprinting speed, leaving silk bits in her wake.

  • Thief’s Mark: A mark worn to identify oneself to fellow thieves. It lets Hornet earn more rosaries from defeated foes, but she’ll lose rosaries if she takes damage.


Everbloom 

“In the distant past, I knew the flower. My thread still holds its faint memory. If the Everbloom was grasped strongly enough within my Silk, it could be made to manifest.”


A special, powerful flower, plucked via an ancient ritual from Hornet’s deep memories. Also known as the Delicate Flower in the original Hollow Knight, these rare plants shine a soft light that wards against the effects of the Void, allowing Hornet to dive down deep into the darkness to reach Silk’s cocoon below. Holding it prevents her silk from being drained by the void, and prevents damage from touching the void in the first place.  

Undyne

Armor


Undyne has with her a standard issue set of Royal Guard armor, complete with a helmet that is seemingly custom made for her. Though it doesn’t have any special properties to it, it does look cool as hell and we have to give her some points for that.


Abilities

Hornet

Hybrid Physiology


Hornet is no mere bug. As the child of the Pale King and the Beast Queen, Hornet is a hybrid of weaver and higher being, making her an incredibly powerful, one-of-a-kind individual. 


Weavers were once bugs driven by instinct, until Grand Mother Silk rose them into higher beings. The weavers betrayed Silk and locked her in an eternal sleep, using the citadel and the songs of Pharloom’s pilgrims to keep her there, until one by one, Silk and the beings she controlled hunted them all down. Even bug with 1/8th weaver, a single great-grandparent, was able to take down plenty of Citadel combat bugs while already frail from old age or mortally wounded, so being half-weaver should be a good indication of Hornet’s own potential. Just as telling is Yarnaby stating that Hornet’s shell is tough enough that medical equipment can’t pierce it without special spines.


In contrast, Higher Beings are essentially the gods of Hollow Knight’s universe, including figures like The Radiance, Grand Mother Silk, The Void’s Lord of Shades… and, of course, Hornet’s father, the Pale King. These higher beings are extremely long-lived if not outright immortal, with Hornet herself having a lifespan that has exceeded and outlived many of the mates she’s taken throughout her life. Additionally, they have the power to dominate the minds of bugs in their own way, and even to give minds to bugs that possess only instinct. Higher beings have the instincts to dominate others, something Hornet has confessed to feeling herself, but she is able to reject these instincts due to her hybrid heritage. 


Due to this unique nature, Hornet is able to Bind the souls and essence of bugs to herself, allowing her to take on their abilities, minds, and memories. It’s mentioned by Hornet that a strong enough mind would be dangerous to her own identity to bind, but nevertheless, she’s able to bind incredibly powerful beings to herself, even absorbing those like Grand Mother Silk in her entirety in the Weaver Queen ending. Hornet also has a level of advanced regeneration, being able to heal the marks left by Shakra on her shell during their duel.


After binding the soul of Eva, an artificial creation of the Weavers, Hornet gained the Sylphsong ability, allowing her to restore her entire set of Silk by resting at a bench. Being a hybrid gives Hornet plenty of other abilities, which we’ll elaborate on below.


Silk Manipulation


The Silk part of Silksong. Don’t worry, we’ll get to the Song soon. Like all weavers, Hornet is capable of stringing her own soul as if it were a thread to produce ethereal Silk. Silk is a wondrous substance that can heal wounds, extend life, and weave powerful magic runes, as well as powering many weaver devices and special techniques. Hornet has a limited supply of silk, but thanks to the Silk Hearts she possesses, she can regenerate a small supply of it passively, as well as attack enemies to build it up manually.


Hornet’s uses with Silk are extremely versatile. She’s able to use it as a grappling hook to swing around buildings, set traps by entangling them in the air with silk threads, suspend herself above the ground, and even attach her silk to nearby cliff faces and rock bridges to pull them apart. Perhaps most importantly, if Hornet has enough silk, she’s able to Bind her own wounds, healing herself for a good chunk of her maximum health, even in midair. She can hold up to two binds at once, three with the Reserve Bind tool.


Thanks to her training and journey across Pharloom, Hornet has also learned Silk Skills, unique and powerful techniques that expand her repertoire of attacks with the power of silk, generally dealing about 3x the damage of her normal attacks.


Her journeys in Hallownest and Pharloom have taught her how to use various Silk Skills, including:

  • Silk Spear: A simple technique in which Hornet infuses her needle with Silk before throwing it like a spear, pulling it back with a thread.

  • Thread Storm: Hornet unleashes a lashing whirlwind of silk threads around her, repeatedly hitting anyone in her vicinity.

  • Cross Stitch: Learned from Phantom, the sister of Lace. Binding silk around her blade, Hornet unleashes a lightning-fast parry when struck, hitting an opponent multiple times while dashing around them in a blur of motion.

  • Sharpdart: A dashing attack in which Hornet lunges forward, piercing through enemies and striking them three times in her wake.

  • Rune Rage: A magic attack where Hornet unleashes a barrage of silk runes around her, that explode after a delay.

  • Pale Nails: A technique used by Grand Mother Silk herself, which Hornet bound to herself after binding Silk’s arm. It allows her to create a trio of nails of light that home in on foes and strike them like swords.


Crests 


The Crest could be considered a bug’s very being, even if it’s a simple word to describe something so profound. A Crest is an imprint on a bug’s soul forged through their lifetime, a mark of their essence and an invisible yoke, but Hornet is unique in this regard. Her nature, her crest, is malleable and transitory, allowing her to not only evolve her own crest but to bind the crests of other bugs to herself, something which utterly subsumes a bug’s mind, as shown with Eva. 


Using these crests allows Hornet to completely change her fighting style, changing the method she binds Silk with, her various moves and techniques, and even how she interacts with certain tools or skills, up to and including which types she can even equip. Additionally, Hornet has a smaller Vesticrest allowing her to equip a few tools regardless of her crest.


Hornet has no less than seven crests within her, including:


Crest of the Hunter: Hornet’s original crest, evolved twice by Eva. This is a graceful, agile crest, zooming downwards to strike and having mostly straightforward attacks. The more Hornet strikes a foe without taking damage in this crest, the more they build up Focus. Building focus up also increases the damage of her needle, by 30% after six hits, and by another 20% after another six, but being struck resets this gauge.


Crest of the Wanderer: A crest from the chapel of the wanderer, that sacrifices reach for extremely fast, short-range strikes that allow her to cut swiftly and precisely. Additionally, when Hornet has enough silk to Bind, the crest’s true power reveals itself - The ability to deal a critical hit that deals three times the damage. It activates about 2 percent of the time, but this can be increased with the Magnetite dice.


Crest of the Beast: A crest from the chapel of the beast, that replaces precision and grace with ferocity, changing Hornet’s attacks into feral claw strikes and transforming her downward strike into a spin dash of sorts, turning into a spinning whirl of blades before shooting forward to strike her enemies. Her bind, rather than healing, enters her into a fury that lets her pierce through armor, steal life from enemies, and increase the damage, speed, and range of her strikes. However, it cannot equip blue tools without the Vesticrest.


Crest of the Reaper: A crest from the chapel of the reaper, that gives Hornet’s attacks wide, arcing strikes, sliding along the ground, striking foes above and below her, and even pausing in the air briefly to swing in a wide arc beneath her. Most notably, when Hornet binds with this crest, she enters a state where each strike on an enemy draws out motes of silk that she can pull in to replenish her reserves even faster, although it’ll disappear if she takes damage.


Crest of the Architect: A crest used by the architects of the citadel, which Hornet can utilize to transform her needle strikes into powerful drilling attacks that pierce through foes and suspend her in midair with their stopping power. While she eschews silk arts in this state, she can consume silk to instantly replenish her tools, as well as use more red tools than her other crests can carry at once.


Crest of the Witch: A crest gained from achieving domination over the parasite Greyroot implanted within her, one that would have spelled doom for Pharloom had she not done so. The Crest of the Witch allows her to equip more blue tools than normal at the cost of a yellow one, attack with whip-like strikes, move in a blur, and most importantly, manipulate the Greyroot parasite. Her bind, rather than healing, causes gray roots to burst out of her and strike at nearby foes, stealing their life to add it to her own.


Crest of the Shaman: The final crest Hornet gained on her journey, acquired from the body of a Snail Shaman. With each strike in this form, Hornet’s attacks fire out blades of energy that adds extra range to her attacks. While she loses the use of Red tools with this crest, she can use her Silk skills with far greater power, as well as equip more Silk Skills in general. However, she loses the ability to bind in mid-air.


Overall, while each crest has its fair share of strengths and drawbacks, Hornet’s ability to use more than one proves her versatility as a child of Wyrm and Weaver.


Needle Strike


Through Hornet’s training with the Pinstress in the Blasted Steps, she learned the Needle Strike, a special charge attack that deals 2.5 times the damage of her original strikes in exchange for taking the time to charge up her needle. Depending on what crest she has equipped, this strike will take on a different form, ranging from a lunging claw strike to a giant drill to a big energy wave. All of these variants can be viewed here, but hitbox aside, they mostly function the same.


Ancestral Arts


The ancient arts used by the weavers, the Ancestral Arts are dedicated skills that Hornet can perform basically at any time, and offer necessary boons to traversing the halls of Pharloom and the Citadel. While not all immediately useful in combat, they help to contribute to her incredible mobility and repertoire of skills nonetheless.

  • Swift Step: A skill that lets Hornet sprint beyond her limits, dashing and moving at high speeds across the lands. This is further boosted by her Silkspeed anklets, and she can even dash in mid-air should the circumstances require it.

  • Cling Grip: A skill that allows Hornet to cling to walls like the spider she hails from. While she’ll normally slide down them, she can use this skill to rapidly bounce off of walls and ascend vertically.

  • Needolin: Holy shit there it is the Hollow Knight Silksong- An ancestral art in which Hornet forms an instrument out of her needle with a thread of silk, playing it like a harp. This song can cause others around her to begin singing in turn, even when they’ve been mind-controlled by the haunting of Pharloom. Additionally, she can play other melodies to call her Bell Beast to her side for transportation with the Beastling Call, and to dive into the memories of old warriors with the Elegy of the Deep. That said, given neither of these are particularly useful in a Death Battle scenario against someone like Undyne, we won’t be looking too deeply into them here.

  • Clawline: A technique Hornet’s been using since her time in Hallownest, the Clawline allows her to throw out her needle like a Grappling hook, latching onto grapple points or even onto enemies themselves before pulling herself to them for a quick strike.

  • Silk Soar: Allows Hornet to fire her needle far upwards, even reaching as far as Pharloom’s ceiling from all the way in Bonebottom, near its nadir. From there, she pulls herself upwards at high speeds before slamming into the ceiling above, letting her cross incredible vertical distances with ease.



Resistances

  • Extreme Temperatures: Hornet’s shell is more resistant than most, allowing her to resist extreme heat like that of the Deep Docks’ magma rivers, or extreme cold like that in Mount Fay, though it isn’t perfect and will falter eventually. However, the Magma Bell and Faydown Cloak further protect her from these.

  • Possession, Puppetry: Hornet is able to break herself free of the Haunting, as shown when it tries to take her over as she rests in Bellhart. Grand Mother Silk’s silk controls the body and mind of bugs, possessing them to attack others like Hornet, but she’s able to break out of her own with a little struggling. Similarly, she was also able to claim the power of the Greyroot parasite for her own, gaining the Crest of the Witch once he had sufficiently weakened it.

  • Mind Manipulation, Soul Manipulation: It’s not entirely conventional, but Hornet mentioned that a strong soul and mind like Eva’s could be a danger to her identity. This implies that the souls and minds of bugs, which she absorbs when binding, would typically override hers were they too strong. However, she’s able to bind various other crests to herself without this being an issue, with her explicitly stating to Eva that a bound bug’s soul loses its individuality. She can also take hits from The Knight, who drains the soul from its targets with each hit.

  • Poison: She can drink the Flea Brew even when it’s been infused with poison from her Pollip Pouch, and isn’t hurt by it.

  • Corruption: Hornet can resist the corruptive effects of the Void using the Everbloom, which typically takes over bugs and drives them mad, as shown with Garmond and Zaza. She can also resist the effects of the Plasmium phial, which corrupted the alchemist researching it and eventually took over his whole body, although she’s mentioned that she has her limits.

  • Darkness Manipulation: Through the Everbloom, Hornet can protect herself from the darkness of the Void long enough to dive into it and rescue Lace from the darkness.

Undyne

Monster Physiology

Undyne is a monster, and monsters run on an inherently different set of rules than HUMANS. First of all, they aren’t made of flesh and blood like you would expect a living organism to be. Much like how a human is made of water, a monster is made of magic, and contains very little else besides their magic and their SOUL. This gives them very specific boons, such as avoiding the normal weaknesses that someone made of flesh and blood would usually suffer, such as poisons or radioactive waste. What this also allows them to do, though, is manipulate their magic, projecting it into the physical world, whether that be via fire magic, sound-based magic, or even creating entire weapons to attack others with. Not all magic is hostile, of course, but it’s useful in a fight.


This magic, which extends to every monster’s attack, is also capable of attacking someone’s very SOUL, the utter culmination of their being. This means that, in most cases, monster attacks simply ignore the conventional durability of the target itself, and instead attack and shatter a very vulnerable SOUL. We’ll get down and dirty with the explanations and the implications of Undertale SOUL in the matchup later, but we have other abilities to talk about. 

Magic



A monster’s main method of attacking is damage, as that’s what their bodies are made of and they are able to easily manipulate. It’s also seemingly directly tied to their physical stamina and capabilities; as monsters like Aaron and, notably, Sans, are stated to sweat when they start using their attacks or use them in rapid succession, implying that magic takes a physical toll out of them akin to what a physical attack would do to your average person. Magic can manifest itself in many ways, whether it be fire manipulation, creating explosions, or creating bullets. Undyne’s magic manifests in the form of weapon creation. 


Traditionally, Undyne uses spears, which are capable of both coming out of the ground itself, and forming in the air around her and her opponents. While using her Green SOUL magic, she instead sends out arrows of varying speeds, which are even capable of flipping around her opponent for surprise angles. These attacks are especially potent because, as stated before, they are able to directly attack the SOUL itself, bypassing more traditional means of defense and durability such as wearing armor.


Green SOUL Mode

“As long as you’re Green you CAN’T ESCAPE! Unless you learn to face danger head-on… you won’t last a SECOND against ME!”


A type of SOUL magic that is seemingly unique to Undyne, as no one else utilizes it against Frisk; the Green SOUL mode is capable of freezing an opponent in place, leaving them only capable of rotating their body. In the fight against Undyne, she uses this as a way to bombard Frisk with arrows from a distance, and seems capable of applying and removing this status effect with simple motions. This SOUL mode also goes along with Undyne creating a spear and giving it to her opponent, to face her attacks head on and defend themselves. She even does this during the genocide route, so it is either an inherent side effect of the SOUL mode, or Undune is really just that chivalrous. 


DETERMINATION/Undying

“My body... It feels like it's splitting apart. Like any instant... I'll scatter into a million pieces. But… deep, deep in my soul. There's a burning feeling I can't describe. A burning feeling that WON'T let me die.” 


During the Genocide route, Undyne jumped in front of Monster Kid in order to protect him from the player’s killing blow. But despite being cut clean in two, something inside her held on, refusing to die. After all, it wasn’t just her, or even monsters as a whole. If Frisk escaped the Underground, everyone would die. The world would die. 


But it refused. And so did she.


This is the power of DETERMINATION, the power for SOULs to persist after death.


As per the notes in the True Lab, DETERMINATION is the will to keep living and the resolve to change fate. Typically speaking, only humans possess DETERMINATION, and most monsters can’t handle it. Their bodies will melt, and they’ll turn into a monster called an Amalgmate. Undyne, however, is different. Her DETERMINATION allowed her to not only regenerate the wound left by Frisk, but evolve into a new form, which we’ll be explaining soon. Even without that, though, in the Neutral Route, Undyne was able to persist even after receiving a fatal blow from Frisk. Even as her body melted and her shape began to erode away, she refused to die until the very end, still attacking right up until the very point that she gave out and turned to dust. Needless to say, even without the DETERMINATION she found when facing down the Genocidal child, Undyne isn’t going to go down easy for anyone.


DETERMINATION can be extracted from Souls by a special machine, so it isn’t just the emotional concept - It’s a genuine substance that exists and can be tampered with. In the hands of the Player or someone as powerful as Flowey, it can even be used to rewrite the world itself, to SAVE and LOAD one’s existence. Undyne, however, does not possess the ability to Save and Load. Perhaps good for her opponents, as with that kind of power, she could have very well been unstoppable.


Dark World Creation

You gotta admit it looks pretty sick


This is moreso here to be as thorough as possible, so we’re doing a bit of soft compositing here.


In Deltarune, Lightners such as Undyne are able to create a Dark World by channeling their determination (typed out normally) into a sharp point and stabbing the ground. The room envelops itself in darkness, and a Dark World is formed. The only way to stop the Dark World is to seal the Dark Fountain. 


That being said, Undyne has canonically not made a Dark World, doesn’t know she can make a Dark World, and likely doesn’t even know what a Dark World is. We are merely adding this to say that we didn’t leave any stone unturned, but this segment will not be influencing the verdict at all.


Resistances


  • Extreme Temperatures: Though in her normal armor, Undyne is prone to collapsing when exposed to extreme heat, she doesn’t seem to have that problem when outside of her armor. For one, she can survive her oven exploding, which is not just any old oven, but an MTT brand oven capable of reaching 9000 degrees fahrenheit, almost as hot as the surface of the sun. When it comes to cold temperatures, she can survive just fine in Snowdin, which has snow so cold that it doesn’t melt even when exposed to the intense heats of Hotland. Hotland is so, well, hot, that it can instantly evaporate a cup of water, and the styrofoam cup itself. It should be noted though that she still complains about the cold, but not as much as you’d expect a fish to.

  • Soul Manipulation: Due to a monster’s unique makeup, where they are basically only SOULs and Magic, which is linked to said SOUL, they should be more than capable of withstanding attacks meant to harm the SOUL, treating them like they would any physical attack. No durability negation here.

  • Biological Manipulation and Necromancy: Again, due to unique monster physiology, they are not made of anything biological, so abilities that involve blood or the manipulation of a target’s flesh would not work on them. As a monster turns to dust when they die, conventional necromancy would not work either, as there is no body to work with after death.

  • Radiation and (potentially) Poison: There's an energy drink in the Underground powered by radiation, and it’s safe to assume that monsters should be able to drink it without… well, dying, if it’s common enough to have a name and branding. Again, this likely leans into the idea of their physiology making them resist or be immune to things that would kill a normal human. They don’t exactly have conventional bodies to irradiate. As for poisons, many monsters hang around in The CORE, which is full of ozone. This either means that all monsters are immune to air based toxins, or that this is just a quirk unique to the monsters in The CORE. Either way, worth mentioning. 



Forms

Hornet

Weaver Queen (Non-applicable)


In the Weaver Queen ending, when Hornet battled Grand Mother Silk without the Snare Setter, she bound the higher being to herself, absorbing her in her entirety. The result of this was a vastly higher-scale replica of the Haunting, so overwhelming that it physically covered the entire citadel in silk and silenced it. And deep at the core was Hornet, sleeping, as she began to evolve and grow more limbs, becoming a Weaver Queen.


While we don’t exactly see what this form does, as we only see it at all for a few seconds, it’s likely that this is a full transformation on Hornet’s part into a Higher Being, in which she gives in to her desire for domination. However, we can surmise that this version of Hornet would likely possess all of Grand Mother Silk’s abilities due to entirely absorbing her, which would include the ability to possess an entire kingdom with Silk threads, create other lifeforms out of silk like Lace and Phantom, fly freely, cause earthquakes with her threads, and resist the powers of the Void without the Everbloom.


Obviously, given that Act 3 continues past this moment without Hornet binding Grand Mother Silk, this isn’t a form that’s applicable to her in any way, but it’s still notable enough to be worth mentioning, as a potential future Hornet could have gone down. While she did end up binding GMS to herself in the Act 3 ending, she was extremely weakened at that point and didn’t even have enough strength to get Hornet all the way to the top of the Void.


Cloakless


She Nakey


Can still snap a bitch’s neck tho-


Undyne

Undyne the Undying 

“This isn't just about monsters anymore, is it? If you get past me, you'll... You'll destroy them all, won't you? Monsters... Humans... Everyone... Everyone's hopes. Everyone's dreams. Vanquished in an instant. But I WON'T let you do that. Right now, everyone in the world... I can feel their hearts beating as one. And we all have ONE goal. To defeat YOU. Human. No, WHATEVER you are. For the sake of the whole world... I, UNDYNE, will strike you down! You're gonna have to try a little harder than THAT.”


Remember that form we were talking about earlier? This is it. Undyne the Undying is the true hero of the Underground, perhaps the strongest monster alive today. In this state, Undyne became the only monster capable of taking multiple attacks from Genocide Route Frisk, her attack stat going from a 50 to a whopping 99, far beyond any other monster in the game. 


Undyne’s magic also gains a notable boost, as in this form, the quantity and speed at which she can summon and fire her spears dramatically increases, allowing her to fire wild volleys at opponents from all directions to try and catch them off-guard. She can even create rings of spears to surround her targets that rotate around as they close in, forcing her target to maneuver extremely carefully if they don’t want to be impaled.


However, power like this does not come without problems; a monster was never meant to take in DETERMINATION, and the moment she enters this form, it seems like her body will be on a timer. Other monsters who were given DETERMINATION, via experiments from Alphys, would melt away given time, and even in Undyne’s own fight we can see that she begins to melt the moment the lethal blow has been dealt. It’s arguable that maybe this only happens when taking major amounts of damage, but either way it’s worth bringing up in this analysis.


It also seems that she is unable to enter this form under just any circumstance. In neutral routes, Undyne won’t even think about going into this form, likely because she doesn’t know she can, but in the Genocide route, the idea that she’s fighting not just for Monsters, but for the world itself, fuels her with this DETERMINATION. It’s safe to say that she needs to believe the world itself is in danger, and that her opponent will wipe out everything, in order for her to enter this Undying form. 



Cop (Deltarune)


Lost ALL of her aura bro what are we even doing here




Feats 

Hornet

Overall 

  • Survived the fall of Hallownest and stood guard over it for ages after

  • Helped the Knight defeat the Hollow Knight, and tested it repeatedly to help it grow

  • Defeated many powerful warriors like Quirrel, Lace, Phantom, Karmelita, Khann, Seth, Gurr, and the Clover Dancers

  • Escaped the Slab, a high-security prison

  • Infiltrated the Citadel and fought through its defenses

  • Helped to rebuild and repair towns like Bonebottom, Bellhart, Songclave

  • Fought and documented most of Pharloom’s creatures

  • Survived and ultimately gained control over Greyroot’s parasite

  • Bound the crests of seven beings to herself (Eight if counting Silk)

  • Escape the Void and saved Lace from it


Strength 

  • Snapped the neck of a bug three times her size with ease

  • Can wield a needle as big as she is without issue

  • Took down various giant opponents like the Fourth Chorus

  • Can shatter stone and metal structures and machines

  • Her silk could briefly restrain the Hollow Knight

  • Crushed a large stone bridge with her Silk while severely weakened (0.81 Tons of TNT)

  • Can deflect massive metal bells larger than she is


Speed 



Durability

  • Can survive the extreme temperatures of the Underworks and Deep Docks

  • Survived multiple long falls even while weakened or exhausted from battle

  • Can tank hits from Grand Mother Silk and Fourth Chorus

  • Survived a large explosion in the Far Fields (0.32 Tons of TNT)

  • Survived an even bigger explosion in the Black Egg Temple (1.72 Tons of TNT)

  • Tanked having rocks brought down on her by Grand Mother Silk


Undyne

Strength 

Speed


Durability

Scaling

Hornet

Hallownest


Being Hallownest’s protector for ages, Hornet has obviously seen some of the strongest and most vicious of what Hallownest has to offer. She’s capable of fighting off adventurers like Quirrel, killing many who seek to plunder its depths, and her silk can restrain the Hollow Knight, the game’s first final boss arguably the strongest non-god figure in the game as a higher being containing another inside it. Additionally, she’s battled The Knight twice, and should thus scale to it as well.


Pharloom


While Hornet was initially weakened when she was brought to Pharloom, she ultimately became far stronger, upgrading her nail past its previous peak in her quest to confront Grand Mother Silk. With this new strength came new challenges, and new warriors that she would have to duel and face, ultimately overcoming each and every one of them be they bug or god.




Undyne

Generic Monsters

Scaling characters in Undertale is actually pretty simple as long as you’re not named Sans. We actually have statistics in-game that tells us who is superior to who in both defense and offense, and since Undyne is one of the strongest monsters in the Underground, and this being backed up by her stats, it’s fair to say that she scales to most feats that are performed in the Underground, especially since in her Undying form, her stats max out at 99, far higher than any other monster in the game. Because of this, we will be looking at every monster in the game up until Asgore and Flowey, as they should have their own arguments. 


Asgore

Asgore is an interesting case, as far as Undyne’s scaling is concerned. While she has never been implied to be really on his level in base form, she has knocked him around during ice hockey and in alternate endings had overthrown Toriel, who is comparable to Asgore in strength. On top of that, in her Undying form she actually has a higher attack stat than Asgore, meaning that at the very least, she scales to Asgore in that regard.


Unfortunately Asgore has no feats of his own so uh rip bozo


Flowey

No, not Omega Flowey. Normal Flowey is, as far as we’re concerned, a normal monster, and seems to have no inherent superiority over other monsters outside of LV, given that Toriel was able to not only stop his attacks but also knock him away with a single fireball. Undyne, along with other monsters near the end, can block base form Flowey’s attacks. Though Flowey overpowers and restrains her in this scene, it is likely because she’s taken by surprise.


Frisk

This is pretty simple. We can scale Undyne to a Frisk with minimal DETERMINATION and no LV. Though this does mean Frisk is weaker than just about everyone in the Underground, they still get some really good feats to go off of, and Undyne should scale in turn. 



Weaknesses 

Hornet


For as powerful and skilled as Hornet is, she’s not without her drawbacks. 


While miraculous, her Silk is limited in quantity. She can only hold so much of it at a time, and in order to get more, must rest at a bench, strike enemies, or wait long enough for some of it to regenerate. Additionally, while binding silk can heal her, being struck during this process will interrupt the binding process AND cause her to lose the silk she used for it as well, making it risky in a close-quarters fight.


Most notably, binding a soul and mind of too much power may risk her very identity, as stated with Eva. While Hornet was ultimately able to bind Eva nonetheless, this shows that there’s a limit to her binding, as if she tries to bind a soul that’s too strong, she may very well be the one that gets subsumed.



Undyne

In her base form, Undyne is a brash and arrogant fighter that can often let her temper get the better of her, getting absorbed into her passions and lost in the heat of the moment in a way that could cost her her life or, in her date scene with Frisk specifically, her house. Undyne throws herself in harms way in order to help others, such as when she jumped down to save Monster Kid from a terrible fall, at the cost of being injured. She is also, in her armor, susceptible to the heat, passing out from heat exhaustion mere seconds into entering Hotland, but splashing her with some water seems to fix her right up.


Then, there’s the glaring weakness that monsters face. Monsters are very in tune with their SOULs, the source of all their powers. Should this connection become frayed or tense in any way, such as them fighting someone who they really don’t want to fight, their defenses become weaker, and they cannot fight at max power. This becomes further exacerbated if the opponent has a powerful SOUL, and a strong desire to kill. In her base form, Undyne was one shot by a Frisk with a decent amount of LV and a large desire to kill. 


It seems, though, that when she is in her Undying form, this weakness does not apply to her. Instead it seems as though her weakness to killing intent is switched for either a time limit or a damage limit, where she will begin to melt if a fight lasts for too long or she takes too much abuse in a fight. Monsters aren’t meant to have as much DETERMINATION as she does, you see, so it makes sense that her body reacts so violently. 


Before the Verdict 


Is Respawning Canon?


Just like in the first game, Hollow Knight Silksong features a respawn mechanic where Hornet is able to travel to the spot of her death and retrieve her fallen coin and silk from the cocoon she leaves behind. Shakra remarks the wounds she made in the duel they had that kills Hornet if you lose, and there exists an item called the Dead Bug’s Purse that allows her to retain some rosaries on death. 


All of these things would imply that Hornet is able to similarly resurrect on Death, but it isn’t so clear-cut. 


For one, The Knight’s resurrection is much more tied into the lore and narrative of the game, with the Knight’s physiology as a void being allowing it to return from death and tame its own shade. Compared to the purse, the Voidsoul charm that the Knight equips is directly part of the story. Hornet isn’t a void being, and thus does not have this ability, so her resurrection method can’t come from that, and the Dead Bug’s Purse is just a random purse that she finds in a cave.


Similarly, while both games have a mechanic to get more easy access to resurrections (Rancid Eggs and Silkeaters), Joni, who takes Rancid Eggs, makes explicit mentions to the Shade, while Styx, who produces Silkeaters, makes no such mention, only stating that consuming silkeaters will make Hornet stronger. While one could look towards Shakra as evidence, that battle was under the pretense of a friendly duel, and it isn’t exactly likely for Shakra to kill Hornet given that Hornet isn’t doing the same, and the two are on good terms. This means we have no explicit mentions of Hornet being able to resurrect.


So does this mean that she doesn’t have any form of Resurrection? Well, not necessarily. We know that the Pale King had powers of Precognition, and was able to shed his skin in order to cheat death and become the more humanoid Pale King we see through most of the games. Given that Hornet is his daughter, it’s possible that her Cocoon form may be a variant of this, shedding a cocoon in order to retreat and fight another day. Alternatively, deaths could be a future vision as we do see Hornet waking up from benches after her defeat. However, given the former isn’t remarked on by other characters, and the latter is an extrapolation, it isn’t concrete.


Ultimately, it isn’t impossible that Hornet could have some sort of precognitive or resurrection ability, and you could certainly make an argument for it. However, we believe that these arguments are currently too vague, and lack any concrete backing for them.


Universal Hollow Knight!? (No)


Okay I’m pretty sure this isn’t widely believed anymore so I’m not gonna go too deeply into this but I just KNOW someone is gonna bring this up in the comments section if I don’t so here we go


No, Hollow Knight is not universal. The feats used to argue such, beyond being incredibly flowery, don’t hold up even if you take them at face value. You have to do a lot of extrapolation to justify it and the arguments that result are at best shaky. Dreams being eternal does not make them infinite, the Radiance’s light shining brighter than essence just means the light it produces is a more potent source of power and not that it on its own is stronger than all essence in the dream world, the Radiance is not the sun despite looking like one, etc. etc.


Now, all that being said, it’s debatable that Hornet would even scale to the Radiance, as the Knight had surpassed her at the time of the Hollow Knight fight, with Hornet only being able to briefly restrain the Hollow Knight before being knocked aside in one hit. While she did get stronger during the events of Silksong, it’s hard to say how Grand Mother Silk exactly compares to the Radiance, given that she had only just woken up when Hornet arrived to fight her and wasn’t at full strength when Hornet bound the last of her power at the end of the third act. Weaver Queen would probably scale, but given that Hornet never achieves that form in Act 3, it isn’t exactly applicable anyway.


Monster Magic = Real Stats?

Oh THIS motherfucker-


Scaling monsters and their magic to their physicals can get a little weird in Undertale, if only because of the unique way Undertale handles its mechanics and fight system. A lot of monsters use magic that are analogous to real world things they could be doing, such as Lesser Dogs barks, and Icecap making actual ice to throw at Frisk. This is all fine enough when you talk about simple cases like this, but then you get Vulkin and its electricity… or is it lightning? This is something that’s a bit tricky, as Vulkin attacks using clouds that shoot out bolts of… something. This is where things get tricky. While sound has properties that are consistent no matter what (mainly it’s speed), depending on if this attack is lightning or electricity, it could be moving at vastly different speeds, to the point of being a genuine outlier to the verse, as nothing else generally moves that fast. Because of how rocky Undertale’s magic can be, and due to the fact we don’t know what Vulkin’s attacks actually are made of, we found it best to disregard this for the sake of the verdict. Others may see this as a very generous high end, but we found that it muddles up the debate a bit too much for our liking. 


What we can scale Frisk too, though, are the barks of Lesser Dogs, and the meteors of Knight Knight. The former is sound, so we don’t really have to discuss that. While Knight Knight’s meteors are a bit trickier. They are obviously not entering from the atmosphere, as the game takes place… well, underground, but as we can see from the visuals provided, they are moving fast enough to catch fire. This means they are at least moving at Mach 5.83. This is where we will be scaling Frisk, and therefore other monsters, in terms of speed. 





The Verdict


There are a lot of factors that go into deciding the victor of this fight. We’ll be breaking down physicals into a few categories and then working from there to wrap up the rest of the categories.

Stats 

So this is where we actually have to start talking about Undertale calcs. More specifically, why are all the calcs so weird and have so many ranges that vary a lot? This is mainly because you kind of have to figure out how tall Frisk is, and for some people this is more difficult to answer than you’d think. A lot of people like to simply compare them to a height that’s around average for a child their age. This would be somewhere around four feet or so, but others compare to scale Frisk to other monsters in the Underground, and this can get a bit weird, especially with the art style of Undertale and how everything doesn’t match perfectly. The higher ends of these calcs that we’ve shown compare Frisk’s height to Asgore, and compare Asgore’s height to the adult human that we see in the intro to the game. Basically, this makes Frisk a little over 5 feet tall. We found this to be a little too much, and hard to believe that a pre-teen child would actually be this tall. Because of this, we erred on the side of caution and took the lower ends when it comes to these calcs, giving a little wiggle room to decide if the values are higher or lower, but just know that in general, we are going for lower ends here.


That being said, for strength, it actually doesn’t matter much what ends we use for most calcs, because only one feat becomes super relevant for this, and that’s Frisk taking the explosion that vaporizes a tree, which comes in at 19.72 tons. Frisk takes this explosion with ease, and Undyne is capable of causing actual, significant damage to them, meaning that she should at least scale, if not upscale. Compare this to the best feat we can scale Hornet too, the earthquake Silk caused, which goes to 15.57 tons, we can see that there’s a clear, but not overwhelming advantage for the Royal Guard. However, Hornet has several attacks and techniques that can do double damage, or even more, than her base attacks, meaning that she can easily output strength higher than what Undyne could do in base. This means that, arguably, in base, they should be on equal terms, if not Hornet coming out on top just slightly.


Things get more interesting when we take into account Undyne the Undying, though. Since her in-game statistics double, and we’re working on similar logic for Hornet, this must mean that Undyne’s attack potency gets doubled as well. This would make her two and a half times stronger than Hornet’s base strength, with Hornet not having many ways to close that gap that don’t take a while to charge or use up her resources. While Hornet arguably has more strength in base form, Undyne should be capable of surpassing her on the regular once she reaches the Undying state, making this category more or less even.



Something a bit more clear cut, though, is speed. The best we can scale Undyne to is Frisk, who is capable of dodging attacks from Vulkin, and meteors from Knight Knight. If these were actual meteors, and if we had confirmation that Vulkin summoned lightning and not just electricity, perhaps we could scale these a little higher, but as it stands, with how strange monster magic is, we can’t exactly do that. This means the best thing we can scale Frisk to is dodging projectiles that are moving so fast they catch fire. This makes Frisk about Mach 4.80, and since Undyne can chase Frisk down during her boss fight, it’s fair to say that she’s a little bit faster than that, even.


Compare this to feats from Hornet. Hornet, funnily enough, also scales to a small creature who moves in tandem with electricity. Funny how the world works. However, the Knight moves notably faster in their own feat than Frisk does in theirs, and has shown the capability to move this fast while attacking, at that. Overall, the Knight’s speed clocks in at Mach 7.7, and Hornet even has ways to increase her speed such as the Flea Brew. This is in contrast to Undyne who doesn’t have any notable speed increases, even in Undying. This means that, overall, Hornet is going to be about 1.6x faster than Undyne on the regular, with the ability to make herself even faster. This isn’t an overwhelming advantage, but we’ve seen speed be the make or break in fight blogs before, so it’s certainly notable. 


Hornet takes the speed category.


Arsenal & Abilities 

This one isn’t much of a fair comparison. You’ve seen the blog, you’ve seen the grocery list of items that Hornet has at her disposal, and the silk skills that she can use to turn the tide of a fight. These range from items that can temporarily heal her, defend her while binding herself, regenerate silk faster, and even things she can use to poison Undyne or attack her from a distance should she want to play a ranged game. When you’re up against this, Undyne’s ultimately small arsenal of weapons and tricks leave just a bit to be desired.


Of course, you’d have to consider how useful all of them are. Throwing items are nice, but a lot of them ultimately do the same thing, with some mild spins on it. She has a lot of items where the whole point is to just throw it forward. Maybe it’ll ricochet sometimes, but her arsenal has a lot of weapons that would end up doing the same thing. It’s still a great advantage, of course, but the fact that a lot of her weapons would accomplish the same thing does mean the advantage isn’t as great as one might expect. She doesn’t have Dante level weapons in her backpocket, but she has a lot of good ones at her disposal.


Tertiary Factors 


Not too many tertiary factors to consider, but there are some of note here. The first thing we’re going to talk about is Agility. We consider this different from speed because while speed is how fast you can move, agility is what you can do with that speed. This is your general mobility; double jumps, wall runs, you get it. Thankfully for Hornet, she has that in spades. From her silk allowing her to grapple onto handholds and enemies, her double jump and mid-air dash allowing her to access places she normally couldn’t, or simply moving in and out of sight whenever needed for attacks such as parry, Hornet has agility in spades. She was trained under people who were just as quick and agile as her, and a lot of her fighting style revolves around being slippery and avoiding hits, which she has the moveset to do.


Undyne… doesn’t do any of that, really. Due to limitations in Undertale’s combat system, we don’t really see Undyne dodge anything, or make any attempts to show off some hidden parkour talent. In her fight she mainly just stands there while persisting most attacks and attacking with her own overwhelming onslaught. Disregarding any of her other abilities at the moment, if she’s up against someone slippery like Hornet, she’ll struggle to hit them because of how agile and mobile Hornet can be. Hornet easily takes this category.



When it comes to Endurance, this one is a bit tricker. Hornet can fight for a long time, it’s true, but generally speaking if she’s not getting silk during a fight there’s only so many hits she can take before she’s down for the count, or before she has to rest at a bench. Her ability to prolong a fight almost entirely depends on how much Silk she has on standby at any given time, and if she uses her silk skills at all, she’s going to be running out of silk more often than not. This could be a problem if Hornet intends to prolong a fight.


Undyne does not have such problems, though. Her endurance stems entirely from her own abilities and doesn’t depend on an external resource. Sure, technically DETERMINATION is a resource, but we have never seen someone be depleted of their DETERMINATION. Hell, Undyne has actually been shown to have too much of it, as it’s causing her to melt near the end of her Undying boss fight. It’s a different brand of endurance compared to what Hornet shows, but it is also more reliable, as Undyne doesn’t need to score hits and use resources wisely to stay in a fight; she can just keep wailing on someone until they go down.


The last factor we’ll be considering in this case is Skill, which we’ll wrap experience into as well, as they’ll go to the same person; Hornet. Undyne isn’t a slouch when it comes to how skilled she is. Outside of likely Asgore, she’s considered the best fighter in the Underground, the strongest monster. You don’t get to be captain of the Royal Guard by being a slouch or your average joe in terms of fighting, but the main issue Undyne has is that the Underground… doesn’t really see much conflict. The most that might happen is a rogue monster such as Flowey fighting others, or even a human falling into the underground and starting a fight themselves, but we have no confirmation that Undyne has ever been part of an event like this. This is something that really hurts both her experience and skill, as we have no way to know how good she is on a fight to fight basis, or how many real, non-sparring fights she’s been in. 


Hornet, meanwhile, we know is experienced. She’s been watching over Hollownest since its collapse, and is skilled enough to contend with warriors such as Shakra, Khann, and Lace, all of which have either been training their whole lives or shown obvious skill and martial prowess. She’s so well versed in the blade that she’s able to tell how skilled others are just by looking at them. Ultimately, Hornet has had to fight to survive, to make it in the horrible, souls-like world that she lives in. A life of relative peace like Undyne has was a luxury that Hornet couldn’t afford, and it netted her countless years of experience and skill. She takes the category.


Summary

Hornet 


Advantages:

  • Faster and more agile

  • Significantly more experienced

  • More skilled fighter

  • Greater defensive options can help against the strength gap

  • Can heal herself more consistently

  • Notably more ruthless


Even Points:

  • Mostly identical offensive options

  • Can match Undyne’s stat increases with her special moves

  • Resists SOUL attacks

  • Similar range and options for battlefield control


Disadvantages:

  • Less durable

  • Weaker with her regular strikes

  • More limited resources

  • Vulnerable to Green Soul Mode


Undyne

Advantages:

  • Slightly stronger, notably moreso as Undyne the Undying

  • Tougher and more endurance

  • Gets fully healed when she becomes the Undying

  • Can directly spawn attacks behind Hornet

  • Less limited resources

  • Can lock down Hornet’s agility with Green Soul Mode…


Even Points:

  • Mostly identical offensive options

  • Resists SOUL attacks

  • Similar range and options for battlefield control


Disadvantages:

  • Somewhat slower

  • Vulnerable to poison

  • …But either can’t or won’t keep it on all the time

  • Undying only heals her once


This fight is actually a lot closer than one would expect going into it, and just looking at the categories and who we decided takes what, you might not think that right off the bat, but there’s been a big caveat to a lot of these that hasn’t been touched on yet, and that’s the Green SOUL mode. It’s hard to overstate just how notable and devastating this is to a fight, especially for someone like Hornet who relies on quick hits and overwhelming an opponent through speed and a flurry of blows. This is something that will actively shut down an opponent trying to maneuver around, locking them in place and leaving them vulnerable to an arrow barrage. With this one trick alone, a trick that Hornet has never seen before, it completely shuts down her agility, and arguably most of her speed advantage, for about half of the fight.


However, this doesn’t mean the SOUL mode is an instant win button. Undyne is a very honorable person, it seems, and wouldn’t just use this unique magic of hers to win a fight outright. Even in the genocide route of Undertale, when she thinks the entire world is on the line, she would still give Frisk a spear to defend themself against her oncoming attack. Not only that, but she will sometimes take them out of this SOUL mode entirely, opting for more conventional attacks. These are moments where Hornet can capitalize and overwhelm an opponent with her speed and mobility.


It’s not like Hornet would be a mere sitting duck when under the effects of this mode, either. Her superior speed, and the ability to enhance her speed whenever desired with the Flea Brew, mean that she would probably have an easier time of deflecting the arrows than most people, and she even comes with her own spear-like weapon in the first place, so she’d know how to use it when it comes to deflecting attacks. She’d likely still be able to attack Undyne, even while under this magical influence. She has a variety of tools in her arsenal where the entire purpose is to throw them from a distance, and we have no reason to believe this wouldn’t work. All of Frisk’s attacks in Undertale are represented as physical slashes, after all, so we can’t assume that ranged attacks would be impossible. 


The biggest trick for Hornet, though, would be Undyne’s second phase, Undyne the Undying. Unlike Frisk, Hornet isn’t going to have one shot base Undyne going into the fight. It’s likely that Hornet would have to force Undyne into this form, which involves a long fight before she even gets there. She’d have to fight an Undyne that is both fully healed and a little over twice as strong as her, while only having a small speed advantage in order to keep up and avoid attacks. Thankfully, Hornet is used to bosses with secondary phases, and with items such as the Plasmium Phial, the Flea Brew, and the Lucky Dice, combined with the Crest of the Architect, Hornet would have a long lasting stream of healing and protection that she can use should she ever need it. Meanwhile, Undyne’s lack of consistent, regular healing, means that if she gets damaged after becoming Undying, she’s going to stay that way until the very end of the fight.


Undyne is a powerful opponent, with a lot of good tricks up her sleeve that could shake up Hornet, but Hornet’s more experienced mind, her greater skill with the blade, and her agile and overwhelming fighting style will likely be able to overwhelm Undyne if she’s ever let out of Green SOUL Mode. Her greater speed and ability to enhance it if things get tricky will help her block the arrows Undyne throws at her, and her greater mobility and large variety of ranged options should keep the fight outside of Undyne’s more comfortable range. Honestly, if Undyne was more ruthless and bloodlusted, she’d win this fight just about every time, but taking their characters into account, Undyne’s unwavering sense of honor will get the better of her. Hornet is more ruthless, and won’t hesitate to end the fight as quickly as possible, using any tactic she can, especially if she thinks her heart is on the line.


Undyne may have the DETERMINATION, and she might put her whole SOUL into the fight, but it won’t mean a thing when Hornet’s victory Phar-looms over her. Hornet has exactly what she need-les to win the fight. 


The winner is Hornet. 


Epilogue


Thank you so much for looking at our blog! Any share or comment is appreciated. We don’t have a next time for you now, unfortunately, but we will be back at some point! Life’s just getting ahead of us a little so we need some time to recover. This was a bit more work than we expected going into it, haha.


See you all next time!

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