Since the beginning of written history, there have been stories of terrible creatures that fought humans. Tales of beasts so powerful and ferocious that they could kill grown men and steal their souls. After the era of Christ, the stories began to fade into history and over time, they became nothing more than myths and legends. All around the world there are stories regarding these long forgotten creatures. Even though they hadn't been around for at least 2 millennia, if the stories were to be believed, people still feared their very name.
Of course, not everyone brushed the legendary beasts off as myth. Some believe that they had truly existed once upon a time. Those people were few and far between. Unfortunately these people were right, the stories that described them, however, had gotten them horrendously wrong.
Monsters. After having gone through the mountain beneath which they were trapped with her niece, she knew everything she had learnt about them in college had been a lie. These creatures. No, these people, were magical and powerful yes. But they were a peaceful, kind, and warm species that had been trapped underground about two thousand years ago by humans, solely because the humans had been afraid of them. During the war, they had demonstrated their abilities, and had been written into history as some sort of horrible demon. This was not the case.
Scarlett reflected on just how she came to her conclusion, thinking way back to when she rescued her niece from their step-father.
Scarlett told her brother-in-law that he needed to stop. Ever since her sister had passed away a couple years back, he had been getting worse and worse. He used to be a wonderful man, but after her sister got sick, he turned to drinking. At first it hadn't been noticeable, and Scarlett had brushed it off as grief, but it then began to escalate to the point where he would be blacking out at least once a week, and she would be getting called in to pick him up from various bars. She began to worry, as after five years he was still getting drunk nearly every night, no longer calling her for help. Instead he would get stupid drunk, and then get into vicious fights, and going home still riled up. Aggressive and easily angered, she began taking care of her young niece for longer and longer, trying to keep her away from him as much as possible, especially after she noticed the first bruise.
Now Scarlett wasn't the greatest at knowing what was expected of her, and she had a hard time reacting to situations normally, but when she first noticed the bruises on her young niece, she went straight to her brother-in-law, and gave him an intervention. She had given him 2 months. By that point, she had her niece nearly every day, trying her best to keep them out of harm's way, and to allow them to grow and develop like a healthy child, despite being selectively mute. Scarlett learned sign language, and taught them Morse code, and the two of them were as close as a parent and child should be. But that didn't stop the fact that her niece was still legally under their father's care, and so had to spend time around him.
It had been during one of those times that her niece had enough, and decided to run away. She texted Scarlett a message in Morse code to tell her she was leaving for the mountain in the middle of the night. Thankfully, ever since Scarlett's sister had first gotten pregnant, she kept her phone on at all times.
She heard her phone ring quietly beside her, rousing her from her sleep. Sleeping lightly had very few advantages, however this was one. She blearily looked at the message, and seeing that it was from her niece, she opened it. Frisk never texted her unless it was important. In her sleep addled mind, it took her a moment longer than normal to understand that she wasn't just looking at periods and dashes, but was seeing Morse code. She took a moment to decipher the message before throwing herself out of bed. Seeing that her niece was going to the mountain where it was rumoured people went missing, never to be found, she rushed around her room. She quickly got dressed in something fitting to climb a mountain, and packed a bag with a couple extra sets of clothes for both of them as well as a couple sweaters and extra pairs of socks each. She grabbed her shower bag, and some feminine hygiene supplies from the bathroom. She stuffed some snacks in there, and a couple of water bottles, and quickly grabbed her phone, portable charger, a flashlight and her first aid kit in case they got hurt, and left after putting some fire starters and lighters in her bag, and tugging on her shoes.
Scarlett hoped on her motorcycle, and drove as quickly as she could to where the trails up the mountain started, and she hoped that she would be able to reach her niece before anything happened to them. She barely gave a thought to her bike when she got there, pausing just long enough to put the kickstand down and pocket the keys before she started running up the trail. She kept her flashlight swinging around, and kept a sharp eye out for the troubled child. It took her a while before she noticed some recently disturbed plants and dirt, showing small shoeprints diverging from the main path. She followed them.
A short while later, she started to hear quiet sniffling, and she perked up, calling Frisk's name, even though Scarlett knew they were unlikely to answer.
"Aunty Scar?" She heard the soft voice, and began to run as quick as the dense brush would allow towards the voice. It was only a couple minutes later that she finally spotted the small child, curled up against a rock in a small outcropping. She stopped running, but only barely slowed down, scooping the child up in her arms, and hugging them close.
"Frisk! Oh thank god! When I got your text I was so worried! Are you ok? Did he hurt you? Are you hurt?" Scarlett couldn't stop babbling questions, looking the small child in her arms over, trying to see if she was harmed in any way. Other than a faint red mark on her forearm that was probably from her father, she didn't appear to have gotten hurt out here. She nuzzled the small child, lovingly, and she sighed, feeling a sense of relief wash over her so strong she nearly cried.
"He threw me." Scarlett hears her niece whisper, her voice sounding so small that even with her head so close to the child's face, she almost couldn't hear her.
"Sweetie. I know that I probably should have done more for you, but I am going to do my absolute best to make that up to you, starting first thing in the morning. After I take you home and we get some rest, tomorrow morning I am going to make your favourite, crepes with strawberries and Nutella and whipped cream, we'll have some bacon, and then I'm going to take you down to the police station, and we'll get to work getting your father the help that he desperately needs. And I'll do everything in my power to try and get legal custody over you, alright? That way you'll never have to deal with him again unless you want to, ok? But first, let us get off this mountain. It's starting to give me the heebie-jeebies." She says, still carrying her niece in her arms, with her backpack in theirs. She tries to turn back to where she thought she came out from, but too late realizes that she had no idea where they are. She walks a little way, and the ground seems to level off some, but seeing as she had a child cradled in her arms, she didn't get a chance to see the gaping hole in the ground in front of her until she was already tripping into it.
She twisted them around as they fell to cradle her niece against her chest a little tighter, and made it so she would land on her back, Frisk being cushioned from the fall. She didn't know how deep this hole went, or how long they fell, until finally the feeling of hitting the ground with an extra 100 pounds on her chest caused her breath to be knocked out of her, just as she fell unconscious from the fall.
Sometime later, Scarlett began to come around. The first thing she noticed was the distinct lack of a child on her chest, which would have caused her to panic if it hadn't been for how much pain she seemed to be in. She groaned, opening her eyes, and noticed that they had landed on a bed of pretty yellow flowers. She winced, moving her head to the side to try and get a better look at where they ended up, hoping to find some way out, and to see where Frisk went. She breathed out in relief to see Frisk curled up right beside her, clutching the backpack as though her life depended on it. She shifted, trying to sit up, only to find that with every movement, she felt as though she were being run over by a truck. Scarlett realized that this actually hurt worse than being in a car crash, as that had actually happened to her, and wasn't quite this bad. She supposed that in that case she ought to be glad that at least she was still alive, and could move everything at all.
Frisk wriggled in their sleep, and she sighed. She forced herself to move her arms to wake the sleeping child, despite how much everything hurt.
"Frisk. Wake up, hun." Scarlett says softly, gently poking the sleeping child in the side to tickle her. The kid begins to giggle, and wakes up, relief clear on their face that their aunt was ok. Well, maybe not ok, but still alive and breathing.
"Hey Frisky-business. I know that sleep sounds like a great idea, believe me, I do, but we need to get moving and find a way out of here." Scarlett says, and moves to get up, hiding the fact that the small movements alone were causing her to nearly pass back out from pain, and slowly getting to her feet. Scarlett looked up to see just how far they had fallen. Barely able to see the roof of the apparently ginormous cavern, She then wonders how the heck she's still alive. She mentally shrugs, and decides not to question it. She holds out her hand for Frisk to take, and her smart little niece leads them towards an archway lined with ornate, but crumbling pillars. She shivers, wondering how they got there but no humans had ever bothered to try and find them. Passing through the arch slowly because of how bad it hurt to move causing her to barely shuffle, Scarlett notices a single tiny flower in the middle of the room.
"Howdy! I'm Flowey the Flower! Are you new to the underground? Golly! You must be so confused! Too bad there isn't someone around to teach you how things work around here. Well, I guess little ol' me will have to do!" Feeling a tug at her chest, she watches as something misty and colourless floats out, only to solidify into a cartoon-looking heart. Instead of being a normal red heart however, Scarlett is surprised to see it's almost clear, slightly iridescent, with just a hint of silver, reflecting all the colours of the rainbow. Flowey looks at hers confused and intrigued, but quickly shakes it off.
"You see those little hearts? That's your SOUL! It's the very culmination of your being. It can get stronger with lots of LV! What's LV? Why it's LOVE of course! You get LOVE through EXP. Down here we share EXP through little white friendliness pellets! Here! I'll share some with you. Try to catch them all!" The small flower says, and launches some small, spinning white pellets towards the two of them. Frisk dodges them, but because Scarlett can't really move, she gets hit by the couple that had fanned her way. She feels like she just got punched again, and it takes everything in her to not pass out from the pain. She watches as her soul shimmers a bright red before settling back into its silvery, clear iridescence.
Flowey laughs maniacally at seeing her get hit. "YOU FOOLS! Down here it's KILL OR BE KILLED! Now DIE!" He laughs again when he has the two souls circled by the little white pellets, slowly closing them in. Scarlett closes her eyes and braces for the impact, only for it to never come. She looks up and sees Flowey get knocked away by a ball of fire, and when you turn to see where it came from, you are shocked to see a very tall anthropomorphic goat-lady wearing purple and gold robes.
"What a horrible creature torturing such poor, innocent youths. Hello! Do not be frightened, my children, for I am Toriel, caretaker of the ruins. I pass by here every day to see if any humans have fallen. I must say, you are the first humans to have come by in a very long time." She says, and Scarlett feels her fear beginning to ebb, allowing the pain to intensify, and losing her grip on her consciousness.
"Oh dear! You are very hurt! Here, I shall take you to my home." Scar feels herself being picked up by something soft and fluffy, very quickly succumbing to the pain. "Follow me, little one. There are puzzles everywhere, and they can sometimes be dangerous." And that's the last thing she's aware of before passing out.