"Damaged Soul"
Note: Sorry for the delay. I've had a cold since two days after Christmas, and it turned into a sinus infection. I'm doing better now, though, and I've got a long chapter for you!
"Chapter 20: On The Run"
Adelle led Papyrus off the path and into a more wooded area of the park. She couldn't hear the humans, but she had no doubt whatsoever that they hadn't given up the chase. The storm was both good and bad; good, because it was raining hard enough to obscure their muddy footprints, as well as providing good sound cover for them; and bad, because it also masked any sounds of pursuit.
It was also a mercy that they were both impervious to cold weather, though the feeling of their soaked clothing sticking to their bones was a bit unpleasant.
"HAVE THE-"
"Shhh!" Adelle gritted her teeth, throwing a quick look over her shoulder as they ran. "Not yet."
Papyrus quickly covered his mouth. He had always had trouble with regulating his voice! He could speak in a normal voice when he really tried, but it took a lot of concentration, and his voice would slowly rise to its normal volume (loud) after a few minutes. The ability that most other people seemed to have would come in very handy right about now!
No. He could do it. This was life or death, and he wanted the two of them to live. He would not fail at this! Although, maybe incorporating some hand signals would help. Did she know sign language? Not that it would matter if she did, because he didn't know much more than the sign for the word 'sorry'.
They were now in an unkept area of the park, where the black raspberry bushes had been allowed to flourish. The brambles tore relentlessly at their clothing, causing Papyrus some mental distress, but their bones came to no harm. Yet another advantage of being a skeleton. Papyrus frowned at her, then pointed to her and himself, pointed to the briers, then spread his arms wide in a shrug.
"Why are we going through here?" Adelle whispered back. He nodded as they continued to the move, and she replied, "Two reasons. One, the vines just snap back again, so you'd have to really look to find our trail. And two, if they come through here, they'll probably start cussing up a storm because of the thorns. We'll be able to hear them coming."
Papyrus nodded again, then halted when she froze at his side. The rain had let up a little, and now he could hear what had provoked her reaction. The sounds were distant, but they were unmistakable. The humans were charging through the woods, their feet splashing loudly in the puddles that had formed so quickly. They probably thought they were being quiet.
Adelle's eye-sockets were glowing brightly, and she shut and covered them before whispering, "Down!"
Papyrus obeyed her without question, crouching down among the thorny vines and disliking the memories those thorns brought up. He would not think about Flowey now; instead, he would focus on the present. It only took him a second to figure out another reason why Adelle had called a halt. She couldn't seem to control the way her eye-sockets glowed when she was upset, and with the humans this close she would only end up acting as an involuntary beacon. Plus, unless and until the rain picked up, the humans would be able to hear them.
He put his arms around her, hunkering down even further so that he couldn't even see through the thicket, and being as quiet as he could be. Which, surprisingly was very. The rain did not make him shiver, and he didn't even need air, so the two skeletons were absolutely silent when the first human came close enough to be heard when he spoke.
"Well, I can't see the bitch's lights anymore...I don't know where they went."
Papyrus scowled at the use of such a word being used to describe his friend.
From the sound of it, only a few of the humans had followed them this far. Maybe the rest had broken off to circle around them, but they would have had to know the park extremely well to do it in the dark.
Another man (Papyrus dubbed him 'Human #2') snorted. "She's here somewhere. Keep looking."
A third human ('Human #3') asked in a nasally voice, as if fighting a cold, "What about the boyfriend?"
B-b-boyfriend? Papyrus felt his face growing hot, and tried to ignore it. This was not the time or place to act bashful! The humans couldn't possibly know that they were still trying to sort things out for themselves, and it wasn't their business anyway!
Human #2, who seemed to be the leader, said in a voice that was colder than that November storm. "Dust him. Get her alive."
"I'm almost out of bullets."
"Then make 'em count."
The humans moved off again, and Papyrus became aware of the fact that Adelle had begun to tremble violently. He was sure it had nothing to do with the cold. He listened for a few more minutes, debating whether he should take a peek or not. He couldn't tell how many pairs of feet had walked away. What if one of the men had stayed behind to see if they were hiding in the bushes like mice?
Hiding like this! It went against everything Papyrus stood for. If it was just him, he would have...
Well, he probably would have been shot and killed, actually. And where would Sans be without Papyrus to cook for him and pick up his empty ketchup bottles?
Adelle slowly opened her eye-sockets, and they were both relieved that the green glow was gone. "They're gone..." She wiped rainwater from her face and sighed. She was confident that the humans wouldn't find them, but she didn't want to leave the thicket just yet. Maybe they should just wait out the night, hoping that the commotion they had made would bring the police.
Papyrus couldn't get over how badly she was shaking! He lowered his voice to a whisper, something that only happened once in a blue moon, and asked her, "Have the humans ever chased you like this before?"
She was so surprised at hearing him whisper that her shakes greatly lessened, and she shook her head. "Never this many. And I've never been shot at before. But yes...this has happened before."
He nodded, thinking he understood why she was shaking. He kept one arm around her and rubbed her shoulder. Again, he concentrated on whispering, though it was difficult to maintain. "You don't have to be afraid. I, The Great Papyrus, shall not let anything happen to you."
Adelle gave him a rather incredulous look before cocking her head to listen. Nothing. They were still alone. For however long that would last. "I'm not afraid, Papyrus. I'm angry. You know how I didn't talk to you for a few weeks?"
Papyrus looked down and nodded unhappily. Why did she have to bring that up? Of course, he didn't blame her for it, but he had actually cried in front of Undyne, of all people! Yes, he could now admit to himself that such a thing had happened, and it wasn't hay-fever after all. This was a chapter of his life that he liked to pretend didn't exist.
Adelle could see that the memory of it hurt him, but she went on anyway. She had to make him see! Even if it brought him pain, he deserved to know. "I'm sorry. But this is exactly what I was afraid of. You told me before that you didn't want anything to happen to me. Well...I don't want anything to happen to you, either! Now, here we are, dripping-wet and squatting in the bushes, and we're still far from being in the clear."
"WE'LL-" Papyrus covered his mouth a split-second before Adelle did, and they shared a horrified look. Curse his strident voice, why wouldn't it obey him?! He nodded, she raised a brow ridge, and he nodded again. They lowered their hands from his mouth, and he whispered, "We'll make it. And then, when we do, I think we'll have a few things to talk about."
Unsure whether he was holding this against her or if he meant that he'd want her to elaborate later on, she looked away.
They were silent for another half-hour, just in case Papyrus's slip had been overheard, but nothing happened. Papyrus checked his pockets for his cell phone, which he still had, but the battery had run down. Adelle checked her own pockets, and realized that she had forgotten her cell phone altogether.
Instead of a phone, she pulled out a green headband. It was the same headband Papyrus had given her earlier that day to wear on their jog. That already felt like it happened a lifetime ago!
Papyrus squinted in the dark, then smiled and brought out his own headband. He put it on, and without a word, she did the same. Neither of them was sure why they did this, but this act of solidarity, as tiny as it was, seemed to give them courage.
Not that Papyrus actually needed courage; he had more than enough to spare. But their inability to do much more than hide just didn't sit well with him, and he reminded himself that it would be wise to follow the lead of someone who knew this park inside and out. He depended on her to get them both out safely, and he would do anything she needed him to do in order to accomplish this.
Finally, she spoke again. "There are hate groups."
"What?" Papyrus was confused; her remark had seemingly come apropos of nothing.
"Do you watch the news? Read the paper?" When he shook his head, she nodded as if he had just confirmed a suspicion of hers. "Maybe you should. Human-on-monster hate crimes are on the rise. They've started forming groups. The majority of it is...mostly obnoxious, really. Taunting, destruction of property, spitting on us, and so on. But some of these humans are killing monsters, and they're doing it for fun."
Papyrus slowly shook his head. Killing for fun? How could taking another person's life possibly be fun? He himself had run into a fair amount of hatred, but it had all been the 'obnoxious' kind. Would he feel the way she did about humans if he had been the one to lose a brother? He didn't want to think about that.
Adelle was nodding. "Yes. It's true. Before we even came up to the surface, humans had hate groups. They would hate anyone who didn't look like they did, or believed in a different god than they did, or didn't believe in a god at all. And now that we're here, they have something new to focus on. This...isn't our world anymore. Before, we shared it with the humans. Now there's no record of that war up here at all, and we don't really have a place in this world..."
"Then we must make one," Papyrus whispered back, giving her hand a firm squeeze. "We must show them that we are here to stay."
"Weren't you listening earlier? They were looking for me, specifically. They...they recognized me, somehow. You could have been killed, just for being near me!" Adelle tried to turn away, but there really wasn't any room to move, and Papyrus only tightened his side-hug.
"But I wasn't. I just wish we didn't have to hide from them. This...is kind of embarrassing."
"Well...we haven't heard anything for a long time. Maybe-"
Adelle should have obeyed her misgivings and not only insisted that they stay put, but also that they stay quiet; the sound of a gunshot nearly deafened them.
Papyrus managed to keep from crying out as the bullet grazed his humerus, leaving behind a deep gouge in the bone and leaving him momentarily dizzy.
Time seemed to slow for Adelle. As Papyrus held his injured arm and tried to struggle to his feet, wanting to protect her even now, Adelle knew that she couldn't let this happen. She held him down with a hand on his shoulder and half-rose from her crouch, her eye-sockets ablaze, and locked onto the beady-eyed gaze of a lone human.
The man tried to fire again, but either the gun jammed or he was out of bullets. He tried again, and again; 'click', 'click'!
"You little stain..." growled Adelle, raising one hand and extending it.
Papyrus shook his head. "DON'T...KILL HIM!"
"You hear that, you son of a bitch? The man you just shot is asking me not to kill you. A monster is asking me to spare you. I want you to remember that." Her hand began to glow, and the human yelped as his gun flew from his hand to hers. "This is mine now. Run."
The human didn't argue. He whipped around, slipped in the mud, and went sprawling. He whimpered as he scrambled to his feet, then pelted away as fast as he could go.
Adelle made no move to attack him. She was preoccupied with Papyrus; he tried not to grimace, but he was in obvious pain. "Oh my God, Papyrus...Let me see!"
"I'M F-FINE."
He wasn't, and they both knew it. The wound wasn't life-threatening, but it hurt like hell and left him feeling weak.
"We gotta move. C-can you walk?"
"HE SHOT ME IN THE ARM, NOT THE LEG," Papyrus forced a smile. "LEAD THE WAY."
Adelle remembered the direction the human ran in, and realized that he was running away from the park's gates. This meant that the others, or at least some of them, were probably deeper into the park. If she went much further, she would be leading Papyrus right to them. But if any of them were camped out by the gates?
The odds weren't great either way, but one way led out and one didn't. She left the gun in the thicket; she didn't need it, and the human wouldn't look for it there, thinking she had taken it. Keeping to the woods, she led Papyrus back the way they had come, wishing that they could afford to go slowly. She dug through her pockets, hoping that she had a piece of monster food on her. Unlike human food, monster food could heal physical damage. Anything would do, even some monster candy! She usually kept some of that in her pockets, just in case.
And she found a piece. Just one. It wouldn't completely heal him, but it was still something. She unwrapped it, nearly dropping it, and put it to his teeth. "Eat this. Quickly!"
Papyrus's jaws parted, and he accepted the little round ball of candy. Immediately, it dissolved into pure magic, and the pain in his arm began to lessen. It was still there, but it was bearable. "THANKS."
There were humans at the gate, but Adelle was actually glad to see them. Red and blue flashing lights told her exactly who they were, and she was never so relieved to see the police. At least, that was until the cops spotted them and drew their weapons.
"Freeze! Get down on the ground! Now!"
Papyrus glanced at her and nodded, and they did as they were told. He knew that the policemen had no way of knowing the truth of what happened, and the only hope they had of telling their side of the story was to cooperate. Getting put in handcuffs wasn't pleasant, though. "AAH!"
"Watch his arm! He's hurt!" cried Adelle.
"Which arm?" asked the one who put the cuffs on her and helped her to her feet.
"His right one. A bullet grazed him."
The other cop inspected Papyrus's arm and nodded to confirm it. "Sorry, I didn't see it. Do you have any weapons on you, sir?"
"QUITE ALL RIGHT, OFFICER. NO, I DON'T HAVE ANY..." Papyrus remembered the gun Adelle took from the man who shot him, and quickly looked in her direction.
"There is a gun in one of the thickets back there," Adelle volunteered, scowling as the officer patted her down. "Are we under arrest?"
"Not at the moment. You will be detained for questioning, and if your stories check out, we will release you."
"Why the cuffs, then?"
"They're for our safety."
Adelle hated the handcuffs, but she understood how all of this must look, and she felt a grudging respect for these humans. Whether they had intended to or not, they had saved the lives of two skeletons, and she at least owed it to them to be on her best behavior. "Ten humans shot at us and chased us through the park. You could have shot us on sight, but didn't. I'll cooperate with you."
Note: I'm taking a lot of liberties with the cops here. I'm no expert, and Mt. Ebott doesn't even exist, so the procedures of law enforcement in Undertale's universe don't necessarily have to be true to real life. I was originally going to have Adelle be the one to get shot, but Papyrus is a little more predictable than she is. I don't think he'd kill the human, but he wouldn't stand for it either, and an actual battle would have brought the others right to them. Adelle might not have killed the human either, but she tends to think things through more often than Papyrus does. So...that was how it worked out.