Howdy fellas
So, I decided to change a little in the setup of the story a little. I felt it would be better if the nightmare was placed here instead of the beginning, since that would make a better continuation of the consolation.
Anyway, enjoy.
"Thought"
"Speech"
"Sans"
"C̴̷̯̗̗̾ͯ̋̎͒̉͜o̴̥̾͂̇̾ͥ͑r͆̂͋̑͒̓̓҉̞͚̜r̎ͭ̌҉̥͍̞͉̗̤̠͟ͅu̧̮̪͊̋́́͊ͣp̉ͭ͌҉̹͔̩̖̀͝t̖̙̹̱͖̻̻̱̃ͫ͠e͍̫̮͙̾̾͗̇̈̌ͨ͗̉d̀͑̓́̾̏ͥ̉̽͏͔̰͕̳͞"
"So, who can tell me what initiated the Monster-hunts back in-"
The door to the classroom flew open, as Frisk entered the classroom.
"Sorry I'm late Mr Howardson." she said in a hurry, "I overslept and Missed the bus so I had ask to ask a friend for help but a dog had stolen his leg and-"
The teacher, Mr Howardson, looked at her with barely concealed annoyance in his expression. He opened the drawer in his desk, and pulled out a piece of hard candy.
"Ahem, thank you for that mildly amusing act Ms Tabria." He said, as he pulled the paper off the candy, and threw it into his mouth. "But if you don't mind I would like to continue the lesson."
Frisk nodded, and quickly made her way towards her chair.
Silently, she sat down and pulled out her history-book. Jonathan, who was sitting on her left side, looked at her and smiled.
"Yo, Frisk…" he whispered, "I think he actually appreciated that. He hasn't gotten the chance to get another piece of candy since the beginning of the class. He seemed rather desperate just before you came in I reckon."
Whatever desperation Jonathan had seen in Mr Howardson before, was by now nowhere to be traced. He rose from his chair, tall, gaunt and long limbed as he was, and walked in front of the chalkboard. Honestly, despite him being human, Frisk wouldn't be surprised if he turned out to be a distant relative to that poor fellow she had met at Muffet's bakery sale.
"As I was saying," he said, still completely understandable despite the large piece of candy in his mouth, "who can tell me what caused the Monster-hunting's back in 1765?"
Frisk narrowly got out of the way, as Jonathan's tail shot into the air like a rocket. Even though he had reached puberty, and his arms finally had begun growing out, he still had a habit of using his tail for interacting. Especially when dealing with something of his interest.
"Ooh, ooh, I know, sir." He said, almost jumping in his seat.
"Yes, Mr Longtail?" Mr Howardson asked.
"Because humans were scared of monsters, sir." Jonathan answered. "Or more precisely, the Serianux Topei was…"
Mr Howardson nodded. "Thank you Mr Longtail. Now can anyone else tell me who the Serianux Topei was?"
A few hands rose hesitantly into the air, along with some tails and tendrils.
Mr Howardson looked around the classroom with disappointed expectance in his eyes, before he pointed a long finger at a small girl with light-brown hair, at the front.
"Yes, Ms Peitral."
The girl jumped a little in her seat. "Uhm… They were a really powerful group of priests back in the seventeen-hundreds." She said, sweating ever so slightly, glancing backwards at her friends; a girl with pigtails, a girl with curly black hair, and a girl made out of tree with grass as hair, "But they were overthrown, right?"
Mr Howardson shook his head ever so slightly and gave out a sight. "That is true… more or less." He said.
"The Serianux Topei was a religious order that was founded in 1472. Do to capable and ruthless leadership, they quickly rose to become the most powerful religious order of all time, ruling over most of the continent." He went on; going into that 'full lecture mode' he was notorious for.
"They were famous for their ability to slowly but efficiently take out kingdoms through psychological warfare, which usually ended with the rulers handing over their authority themselves, or in the few cases it didn't, with the presumed assassination of the ruling family."
Frisk shivered. The whole family? Did that also mean the children?
She couldn't help but think about Asgore and Toriel. They had lived back then. Imagine how they must have felt, not knowing if someone hiding in the shadow would try to kill them.
"By the time they were at their greatest," Mr Howardson went on as he walked back behind his desk, snapping Frisk back to the present, "their only real opposition was the king of monsters, King Rarriwo Dreemur, a fair and strong leader, who did not bow before any other country. The Serianux was scared of such a strong kingdom at their border, and they knew they had to get rid of it. But they also knew that their usual ways of dealing with that kind of problem wouldn't work."
He pulled out a piece of calk, and began drawing some sort of diagram.
"You see the kingdom of monsters had an entirely different kind of government." He said, as he pointed at the circular diagram he had drawn. "Unlike in most human societies, in which the royalty is tied to a specific family or bloodline, any monster who is found suitable by the population can be declared king, if the royal family should fall. This left the usual method of assassinating the king useless. Furthermore, the monster kingdom was also the last refuge for quite a lot of critics of Serianux Topei, some of them acting as high members of monster society."
Mr Howardson leaned forward, and his voice lowered to become low, clear and very serious.
"So in order to make the people rise against the monster society, they started the greatest conspiracy known in our History."
The entire class had gone silent. There was a tension as if a predator was near; foreboding, alert and dangerous.
"At first, they began retelling old stories about monsters being capable of absorbing the soul of dead humans for the sake of gaining immense power, and the stories spread like wildfire. Then they began telling rumours about how the critics were fanatics who were willing to sacrifice their souls in order to take down the Serianux. They slowly edged the people into a hate for monsters, and finally declared outright war against the monsters under the accusation of assassinating lord Belgemorre, a highly standing member of the Serianux. The culmination of fear and propaganda led the people into a frenzy of massive scale. Something the population of monsters never would be able to handle."
Mr Howardson returned to his desk, just as the bell rang, and he waved at them in dismissal.
"That would be it for today class." he said, as he got hold of his bag and opened the door. "We'll be talking about the war itself tomorrow, and I want all of you write a two page essay about the Serianux Topei by the end of next week."
Next class was science. They barely reached the classroom, before their teacher, Mr Foton, came hurrying into the room carrying a large, old radio.
He was a small man, with friendly brown eyes, and puffy black hair; wearing a tweed jacket, brown trousers and west.
"Good morning class." He cheered, as he placed the large radio on his desk. "Please turn to chapter seven."
He turned around, and began loosening the screws in the corners of the radio, before he pulled the entire caging off.
"Heh…" Jonathan muttered, "Now he's not the only one with a screw loose."
Mr Foton didn't seem to have heard Jonathan however. He just went merrily on with the lesson.
"Today, we'll be talking about this radio." He said brightly. "Now, as you can see here, this is the battery. The right part of the battery contains..."
"Hey Jonathan..." Fisk whisperingly asked, "...I was thinking of having a sleepover for a couple of our friends. Are you coming?"
"Sure thing," Jonathan answered with a smile.
"Great," Frisk said smiling, "Me and dad first have to visit the doctor, so if you could be there at four PM. Oh, and dad's gotta visit an old friend, so Sans and Papyrus will be babysitters."
"You're serious!" Jonathan whispered excitedly. "Aw man, Papyrus is so cool. It's gonna be-" 'BANG!'
Both Frisk's and Jonathan's attention snapped back to the front of the class, where Mr Foton was being surrounded by a large cloud of black smoke.
"What happened?" Frisk asked.
Feela, the girl in front of her, turned around.
"Michael asked what a short-circuit looked like. And Mr Foton decided he would show a practical example."
Apparently, that had not been a good idea. The short circuit had immediately burned over, which caught a newspaper on the desk on fire, and before anyone could say "FIRE!" the wind had blown the newspaper into the dustbin, full of previous paper assignments.
"Quickly, someone get the fire-extinguisher!" Mr Foton shouted.
The rest of the school day had gone by more or less quiet. Well, apart from when the cafeteria-lady had been knocked over by Sans and the dog in the lunch break; or when Undyne wanted to play all on one dodgeball against the students in gym.
That statement had resulted in mass hysteria, as every student in the class tried to get out of the gym as fast as possible. None of them wanting to experience what had happened the last time.
So when Frisk and her dad arrived at the clinic that afternoon, she not only had to visit the psychologist. Although she had been lucky; she got out of it with only a sprained ankle.
"Here you go dear." The nurse said, as she placed the ankle brace around Frisk foot. "Now just make sure to give it a lot of rest, treat it with ice if it aches too much, and next time, don't try to jump over the head of your classmates."
Frisk nodded with a smile, carefully got out of the chair and walked over to her dad.
"You have a good time Ms." He said, nodding to nurse as he took Frisk hand. "Now come on Frisk, Dr Raymond is waiting for us."
Dr Raymond was, by all means, a peculiar person.
Frisk had been to the psychologist loads of times, she still didn't really know him. Every time she had been there and made a conclusion as to who he was, she would come back the next time and see an entirely different side of him, almost as he wasn't the same person at all.
In the end, she had learned to deal with it as it came. After all, it wasn't as if he was mean or anything.
Still, it was surprising to walk into the office, only to see Dr Raymond's assistant desperately trying to help him out of a straitjacket.
"Good lord, Raymond," Frisk's dad exclaimed, as hurried over to help the now panicking assistant. "What have you gotten yourself into this time?"
"Don't worry Basil," Dr Raymond cheered, "I was just trying to figure out whether the straitjacket might have a psychological effect on the wearers. So far however, my fourteen-hour long experiment has only given me an aching back."
In her defence, Frisk really did try to contain her laughter. But the sight of the doctor wearing a straitjacket, her dad pulling in one of the strains, while the assistant did the same to another while muttering about scissors, was simply too much for her to handle. She laughed so hard her feet buckled in beneath her, and she fell to the floor laughing while gasping for breath.
Dr Raymond looked at Frisk with his panted combination of perplexity and amusement for a few seconds, before he turned to her dad.
"Is that why you brought her here Basil?" he asked. "Blimey, I can see why. Never have I seen such a bad case of laughing fits."
"No… it's… not… that…" Basil said through gritted teeth, as the straitjacket finally tore with a loud rip, and the three adults fell to the floor in a large tangle of limps.
Dr Raymond was the first to get up. He shook off the last pieces of the mauled straitjacket, and made his way to his desk. He pulled open one of the drawers, picked out a pen and notebook, and placed himself comfortably in the armchair next to the couch.
Frisk's dad was shortly behind the psychologist, helping the disgruntled and bruised assistant on his feet again. "She's been having a lot of nightmares in the past months." He explained.
Dr Raymond nodded "Nightmares you say? Well… I can't say you made a bad decision about getting her here. But why haven't you called in sooner?"
This time it was Frisk who answered. "I… I didn't want to talk about it." She said. "I-I know it was stupid of me, but I just couldn't…"
Her dad patted her on the shoulder and muttered "It's okay sweetheart. Everything is fine."
Dr Raymond sat down in his old chair with a grunt. "Basil, Witherbent, if I could be alone with Frisk it would be much appreciated."
The assistant didn't need to have that said twice. He hurried out of the door while he muttered about crazy employers, extra strong coffee, and a much needed vacation.
Frisk dad on the other hand, just stood there uncomfortably.
"Well I do have a meeting back on the school to attend," he said, "but if you want me to stay Frisk, then- "
"It's alright dad." Frisk said, "You can just go. I'll see you at home."
Basil smiled, and with a wave to Dr Raymond walked out the door.
"So…" Dr Raymond said as Frisk took her place on the couch "Your dad said something about, nightmares. Do you mind if I ask a few questions about that?"
Frisk shook her from her place in the couch. "Nuh-uh."
Raymond smiled while he muttered "That's the spirit", and looked down on his notes. "According to your dad, you've had these nightmares in three months now. Is that right?"
"That's right." Frisk answered, "I think they started the night of the annual Ebott feast. You know the one I'm an honour guest in."
Dr Raymond nodded. The Ebott feast was, after all, quite a big event in the town. It was a celebration to the return of monsters, and the end of a long era in which humans had to live with the shame of committing such a horrendous genocide as they thought they had.
"Why do you think they started back then?" He asked.
"No idea," Frisk answered. "There didn't happen anything at the party."
"Are you sure about that?" Dr Raymond asked, as he raised an eyebrow.
Frisk nodded and said in accustomed fashion." I spent the entire evening together with my friends, nothing unusual happened."
She had practiced that line many times in the mirror. She had to, because Frisk was a horrible liar, and what had happened at the feast had not been nothing.
Frisk, Undyne, Papyrus, Johnathan and Dogan had all gotten bored during the dinner, and had decided to go exploring a bit.
It hadn't taken them long to find the place where the fireworks had been arranged. Undyne and Papyrus had then gotten into an argument about which piece of firework made the biggest explosion. Undyne thought it was the large blue and purple, because it was the largest and therefore should pack the biggest punch, while Papyrus believed the much longer, but slimmer red and green rocket would give a bigger explosion, since it was clearly designed to reach higher, which must mean it needed a longer safety distance, which again meant it must have a greater firepower.
They had continued around the same lines, while Johnathan, Frisk and Dogan helpfully gave in their two cents now and then. And in the end, they all ended up agreeing that the only way to find a solution to the argument would be to fire rockets in question and see which of them were biggest.
They had easily found the remote-controller for the launch, but they had no idea how to use it. In the end, Undyne had given a frustrated cry, gone over and cut the two rockets off the rest, before she then used fire magic to ignite them.
The two rockets flew off. Undyne's flew a long nice distance, until it exploded in a cascade of silver, purple and blue, which fell towards the ground. Papyrus's meanwhile, shot with high speed through the air in a much longer distance and exploded in a cascade of red, orange, green and yellow.
None of them could actually tell which of them made the biggest explosion, but it looked amazing.
Unfortunately, Undyne had gotten so engulfed in the fireworks, she didn't realise that the firemagic in her hand had gotten out of control. However when Johnathan pointed it out with an exclaim, she had dropped the fire with a yelp of pain, and sparks lashed out in all directions and ignited the fuses on the ground.
Frisk couldn't exactly remember what had happened next, but according to Papyrus, Udyne had gotten hold of the children and with Papyrus tight on her tail, gotten out on the plaza.
All the fireworks had been ignited, and for few minutes the people who were still eating had gone in panic, until Asgore, Torriel and the local police department had managed to put everyone at ease.
After that, everyone had just enjoyed the fireworks, and the five troublemakers had promised each other not to tell anyone about this, although Johnathan had begun idolising Undyne again.
Dr Raymond looked at Frisk suspiciously, but in the end just shrugged. He then looked at the sealing for a few seconds and said tentatively, "Tell me Frisk. Have you ever found some sort of... similarities in those nightmares?"
Frisk thought about it for a couple of seconds. Come to think of it, the nightmares were nothing short of identical. The same recurring characters, the same kind of environments, the emotions, even the story was the same.
She explained this to Dr Raymond. And to her utter bewilderment, he began smiling while he muttered, "Excellent... This should make it easier."
When he saw her confused look at him, he explained, "Most dreams, particullarly nightmares, are strongly tied to turmoil within the brain. The more variance in the nightmares, the more different kinds of turmoils there is in the brain.
"Fortunately, since you only have one type of nightmares, it is very likely you only suffer under a single problem. And once we solve that problem, the nightmares will be gone."
That kind of made sense for Frisk. "How do we solve it?" She asked.
"Well..." Dr Raymond said. "For starters, you could tell me about the dream, with as many details as possible. That might help us figure out what the problem might be."
Frisk took a deep breath. This was it. She was going to get the entire story off chest.
"They start with me running down a long path somewhere in the underground…"
A.N.
Woops. Apparently there was lacking a part somewhere in the middle of this chapter, but now that's been taken care of.
Also I changed the name of the story as well as the front picture. Because honestly "Puppet strings" just didn't really fit anymore.
Anyway, as I said last time, I would really like to get questions, suggestions and all those kinds of things to make sure this story gets even better. So if you want to, please leave a review.
P.S. There are two hidden things in the front picture. See if you can find them.
