(50)
In the end, the plan was a simple one: find the explosives, find their friends, and try to stop one or both before it was too late.
Grillby had already started the search for their friends. He suspected they'd be waiting outside of any potential blast radius. That meant they were likely out of the city. He had made his way around the outskirts and eventually up through the tunnels that filled the cave surrounding them. Grillby knew all of their potential hiding spots – he had shown them most of them. He knew how to find monsters that didn't want to be found, that left Gaster with the other part.
Gaster had wracked his mind while they ran back up to the city. He had not placed the explosives, only made them and handed them over to Jani. He also didn't know just how much stronger than advertised these explosives were, so there was a lot of missing information to make an educated guess as to where they would be. What place would cause the most damage depended on several of those things. They also had no idea if maximum damage was what Jani was aiming for, crazy or no. In that case, maximum shock value also needed to be taken into account, as well as where they would be hidden enough that no one would stumble onto them before they went off. There weren't really a lot of places they could rule out.
Grillby suggested to still think of them as the firecrackers he had been told they were, and on areas where it would make sense to put them and still make sense to put something stronger. His reasoning was that, incase either of them came looking at what Jani was doing, he could still maintain the illusion of his plan. It made sense to Gaster. Then, if he went under their original assumption that the bombs were harmless light shows, the only place that it would really make sense to put them was above the city, and Grillby agreed. He said Jani had explicitly mentioned cave-ins. But, sticking them to the bottom side of the cave's roof would be too noticeable and wouldn't do enough beyond still being showy, although in much more frightening way. That left them with one place.
Besides the North, East, West, and South Districts of the city, there was an unofficial fifth, readily accessible only by monsters that possessed at least some capacity of flight. It was more of an informal playground; another large cavern in the ceiling of the one that housed the city where winged monsters went to fly in privacy and have a change of scenery. It was virtually empty, most of the time. No monsters actually lived there out of fear of being too close to the barrier for too long. There was nothing in it to destroy, but destroying it would cause untold damage to the city below. Gaster made his way there while Grillby continued to seek out Jani and the others.
A long time ago, Hannah had shown them a path to the cave over the city that was accessible to those stuck on the ground with a little effort. Grillby figured at the time that it would be one of their best getaways, since no one would ever expect them to go there. It was in the outskirts of the North District, a short way from the castle. As he came to it, Gaster remembered that, back then, he would have used another word besides "accessible" to describe it.
The path was at a near vertical. Gaster had to be on his hands and knees to inch himself up it. He tried to move as fast as he could, but it was draining, literally. He had taken a few of the batteries from the lab to draw on, but in that moment he really wished he had that enhancement magic Grillby had told him about.
Even with all the haste he could manage, it still took Gaster what felt like an eternity to reach the top of the passage. But once he arrived in the cave, he had to stop.
They hadn't actually gone to the cave when Hannah had showed them the way, so Gaster had never actually seen it. Of course it would give him pause. The first thing that struck him was the size of it. Still nowhere near the size of New Home itself, it was much larger than he had expected.
The ceiling rose nearly two hundred feet above his head in a near empty expanse, and went out to an unknown horizon beyond a wall of shadow at least four times as far as it was tall. And Compared to the city, it just felt vast. Pillars of stone, nearly two dozen that he could see, stretching from ground to ceiling, stood spaced throughout the cave. They were as thick as city blocks in some areas with various shaped holes pocketing their surface. The whole place was empty, everyone currently at the celebration below.
Between the pillars, the crystals that poked their way through the roof of the city made their true homes here. Some of them grew out of the ground to nearly twice Gaster's height. He guessed that they must glow fiercely compared to how they were below, but at that moment they were growing dim. It must have been getting late already, Gaster realized. He didn't have time to be staring.
The monster set off, wishing he had been able to gain some control over the magic that allowed him to slow time around himself. The cave may not have been the size of the city, but it was still huge, and there was no telling where the bombs might be at a distance. Gaster's first guess was that they were buried in the floor. But as he scanned the area near him, he couldn't find sign of a single one. He raised his head in exasperation as he tried to think again. Could they just be more clustered in a single part of the ground? He tried to imagine where he was in relation to the city below and realized he didn't even know what direction he was facing. Without the castle to designate north for him, it was surprisingly difficult.
Frustration amounting, Gaster thought he saw something on one of the pillars above him. From that distance it looked like a rock jutting out from the rest, but the color was all wrong.
Where they around the pillars? Gaster thought it made some level of sense; the giant stone columns were likely what was holding the cave up. A thought flashed through the skeleton's mind: that that fact didn't fit Grillby's theory of keeping the illusion of Jani's plan, but he pushed that to the side. Analyze later. He told himself.
Despite being a place for those with wings, the pillars were still accessible to those that lacked. Stairs ascended their exterior, spiraling their way up to the apex of each. Gaster speculated that they were from a time when other monsters frequented more, or for monsters less capable of sustained flight, then shoved the thought aside as well before it could distract him.
A third of the way up, he saw that he had been right. The protrusion he had seen from below was now the paper-wrapped cylinders of what he now knew to be the explosives. Hands materialized before him and he sent them up to grab it. It was up in the middle, at the pillars thinnest point, Gaster noted. It pulled away from the pillar with some resistance, and as the monster brought it back down to him, he saw why. The bomb had been glued to the pillar with some kind of putty, and the only reason he had been able to pull it off was because it hadn't dried yet. If any of them had, that meant he'd need to disarm them then and there, slowing him down considerably.
Despite the cave's emptiness, he knew how Jani planned to set them all off. Sticking out of the top of the bomb he had in his hand, next to the fuse, was a feather. Hannah's feather, a small piece of flint stuck to one side right next to the fuse.
That was their plan: they were going to take advantage of the connection Hannah's feathers shared even after they were off her body and their vibrations to light the fuses and set them all off at once. He pulled the blue feather out and tossed the rest. That, at least, was one.
.
Toriel and Asgore dismounted the river boat as it pulled up to the shore. It was the closest stop to New Home, but they still had a short bit of walking ahead of them. Waving to the hooded boat monster as it departed, Toriel turned to her husband and began to talk now that they had some measure of privacy. "I still do not like that we left so soon," she voiced.
"Things are as stable as they can be for the moment," Asgore countered. "The city seems willing to compromise, but if we stayed any longer they would have started thinking we didn't trust them. And besides, we promised the boys they wouldn't need to be in charge all day." He smiled down at her with some measure of assurance.
She pulled him to a stop and looked back up at him seriously. "Gori, you saw what they were hiding just as well as I did. The old city is starting to crumble. Buildings crafted and tied off with magic that should have stood forever. Their magic is weakening! It shouldn't be possible!"
To her husband's credit, he took the universe defying its own logic very well.
"Forever hasn't exactly passed yet, has it?" he asked calmly. "So believing it would last as long was always fancy at best." He sucked in a large breath, looking away from her. To the past or the future, she couldn't tell. "Besides, it makes a little sense."
"How so?" Toriel questioned.
"If we choose to accept one impossible thing as possible, then we must accept all others."
It took her a minute to follow his logic. He was talking about the barrier. Of course. That on its own was an impossibility shaped by powerful magic beyond her comprehension, and trying to destroy it another equally impossible task. But, thinking about it like that, that also gave her hope – a hope she didn't think her husband realized his words had inspired.
If other tied spells could weaken, wasn't it also possible the barrier could as well?
Of course, he could also be talking about the two of them and their supposed immortality. Indeed, forever had not yet come to pass…
Toriel wanted to explore the thought further, but it was neither the time nor the place.
Asgore further distracted her by asking a question. "How do you think our charge did on his own?"
She suppressed her own inquiries to answer that question. "I do not think Grillby was ready for that responsibility," she stated plainly.
"Oh?" Asgore said as though he had expected the response.
"He has a mind for politics and strategy, but he has not learned enough to see the whole picture," she explained. "He has started to, but he is not there yet. In addition, his mind has been narrowed by being on his own for too long. He does not trust others to aid him; he does not believe trust can go so far."
Her husband chuckled. "If I had known that was how you felt, I may not have let him just yet."
"No, this was probably the best time for him to start," Toriel conceded. "Nothing crazy usually happens on this day." It was true enough. Crazy did happen frequently on Arbitrary Day, but a different kind of crazy, one that results in her lecturing whole groups at a time on the depths of their stupidity, not the crazy that makes her question her decisions before falling asleep each night. Grillby could handle this holiday, even if his methods of leading were still a bit… rough on the edges.
She could hardly blame him, in truth. How long had it taken her to learn the same lessons? Too long, she realized. She saw much of both herself and her husband in the young monster, and so she continually hoped there were some lessons he did not have to learn the hard way like they did.
Just then a thought occurred to her. In seeing the lines between Grillby and herself, she found some of his behavior lately to make sense.
"You have just made me realize something," she finished saying to Asgore.
The monster raised a brow. "What?"
Toriel's resolution made her suddenly eager to get back. "That boy has still been hiding something from us. I intend to find out what it is when we get back, before something can come of it."
.
Circling around the pillar, Gaster found a second bomb and pulled it free like the first. Another pillar was close enough to the one he was climbing that he could see the bombs from where he was standing. He sent out his phantom hands to retrieve them as well. They were harder to pull off than the first two and so he merely took the feathers from them.
The skeleton did more mental math in his head. The pillars were thinnest in their middle, and regardless of how much stronger these bombs were then what he'd thought, he couldn't see them being so strong that a pillar could have less than two or three. He kept count of the number he had pulled off in his head. He had made fifty in total for Jani. He needed to find the rest, quickly.
He descended back to the ground and ran to the next closest pillar. His second battery was already down to half-empty. He had one more after that one, and he hoped that it would last long enough for him to finish, but he was certainly pushing it.
He made his way up the subsequent pillars like he had the first: ascend, disable the bombs, then climb back down and ascend the next. He had made it through nearly forty when the fatigue started to catch up on him and he nearly tripped over his own feet. Or at least that was what he thought happened before the ground in front of him made a chirp! noise and Hannah appeared on the step before him.
She looked up at him in surprise as the skeleton stared back at her in horror.
"Gaster?" she questioned. "What are you doing here?"
"What am I doing here?" Gaster babbled back at her in disbelief. "What are you doing here?"
Hannah smiled up at him with happiness that made Gaster almost melt with dread. "Jani had me setting up the firecrackers," she told him innocently. "I just finished."
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Serena searched the bar for anything that might have been a note left for her.
Nothing.
The water monster tossed the stack of receipts she had been rummaging through to side and put her head in her hands. What was she going to do with that man? They had promised to meet up at the bar after she was done with her shift on patrol. The night before, he'd sworn he would be done with his own work by the end of the morning. Unfortunately, she still had a habit of believing him when it came to his timing. Instead, it was mid-evening and it didn't even look like he had been there yet. She doubted he had ditched her, so what was he up to? She tried to recall the list of things Grillby had said he needed to do that day.
Wait…
Serena's eye caught something on the countertop: a darker spot from all the rest. And was it shaped like a hand? Serena wiped a finger through it and the soot clung to her, some of it passing into her body before disappearing. So he had been there then. But could it have been old? No. Grillby kept the bar immaculate and he only got hot enough to cause something like this if he was angry, or if he stood in one place too long.
What would have made him that angry though, that he'd left without telling her and without cleaning up first? She supposed it could have been some holiday related emergency, but then she and her squad would have likely been brought in for it at the time as well. Unless it had happened minutes ago, or unless it was something extremely diplomatic in nature, but then she doubted Grillby would have gone along himself. She giggled at the thought of him trying to dissuade some argument over a monster's rights to sell snails next to a monster selling slugs or something equally ridiculous.
Then she caught something else: on the floor, on the other side of the bar directly beneath the soot stains, was a scattering of scales. Suddenly the pieces started falling together in mind.
Grillby's friend, the snake, had come here and done something to piss the fire monster off. Not a hard thing to do given what she'd heard about this Jani.
So the snake had come, and now they were both gone. Why?
Serena remembered what Grillby had told her about his last visits, about how bad he felt for leaving them behind, and about the plan they were scheming; the one he said wouldn't happen without him getting involved. What day was that supposed to be again?
"Oh no," she said to herself before she sprinted from the bar.
.
Grillby had made his way around the outskirts of the entire city a second time and still found no one. He leaned against the nearby building and fought for breath, wishing he had something to eat. He spared a moment to look up at the light over the city; it was fading fast. They didn't have long now. "Come on Gaster," he said to himself.
Taking hold of his enhancement magic once again, he rejoined the crowds celebrating in their ignorance and resumed his search.
It wasn't long that time before he thought he saw a familiar snake slither around a corner and he shoved his way after him. One corner was all it took for Grillby to catch up, for Jani was not trying to run or hide. He grabbed his former friend by the shoulders and spun him around. The snake was all smiles when their eyes met, like he had been expecting him.
"Ah, Grillby!" the snake said cheerfully. "You're early."
.
"Be careful with those!" Patrick yelled at his fellow scientists as the wheel of the cart they pulled hit a gap in the stone and nearly tumbled down the cliff. "One of these batteries may be the difference between success and failure!"
One of his fellows rolled their eyes as they righted the cart. "Yeah, and they're also heavy," they said. "So do you mind helping us maybe?"
Patrick grumbled, but took his place at the cart. There were seven other carts like it in front of them on the caravan up to the barrier, each carrying half a dozen of the large batteries holding their wealth of energy, and they were right; they were heavy. They had dragged their blanket-covered powerhouses all the way up from Hotland and across the barren part of the city and were now making their way up the final stretch of cliff to the barrier's focal point. As they continued to push, the monsters around Patrick complained about rather being down with the parties or gave their misgivings about the experiment they were going to undertake with their haul. Normally, Patrick would have told them to shut it, but at that moment, he didn't care. The others didn't know it yet, but they weren't there for any experiments this time.
He looked over at the stone roof that hung over the city, and smiled to himself.
.
"This is over Jani," Grillby told him, gripping the other monster's shoulders tight enough that his heat was singeing his shirt. Monsters swirled around them in street, ignoring them. "This joke has gone on long enough."
"Oh, we've only just begun, old friend," Jani hissed. "And it's no joke. I already told you, you're too late to stop it now. Hannah probably just finished setting things up."
"And Gaster's been busy taking them all down," Grillby hissed back. "We figured you out. We know you put the bombs over the city."
The snake rolled his eyes. "Do you really think I care? I knew you'd figure it out. I wanted you to! And now both of you are right where I want you."
It was then that Grillby realized the truth depth of how they had been played. He had been right; Jani had wanted them to go after the bombs, and now Gaster would be right there when it happened.
"You think you've won?" the snake continued. "I seriously doubt Gaster could have gotten to all of them already. Besides, I went and doubled what I told him to make anyway, so I doubt he even knows how many to look for."
Grillby gripped the snake tighter, wanting to knock him out but knowing he couldn't.
In that moment of anger, the light in air above them fell away completely, replaced by the lights in the street and in the crystals embedded in the stone above. The glow in Jani's eyes grew to something demonic, but the snake wasn't looking at him; he was looking over the fire monster's shoulder. And Grillby saw that Gaster wasn't the only one who had played right into his trap.
"Time's up," the monster said, "and you're the final piece to the puzzle."
.
"What's got you so scared?" Hannah asked Gaster as he stared down at her.
"Hannah," he managed after a moment. He tried to push everything he was feeling out of the way before it could overwhelm him. Their lives may depend on it. "We need to get rid of these things, now, and get out of here."
Hannah looked disappointed with him. "Why?" she asked, turning away. "Why do you have to come ruin things now? I thought you agreed to this!"
Gaster was momentarily shocked by her outburst, but then realized how it must look to her.
"Hannah," he said, "you don't understand, it's dangerous here! These things don't do what you think they do. We need to disarm them, get them down, and leave."
The bird looked around her in confusion. "What do you mean? All they're going to do is make some lights for everyone below."
Gaster didn't have time to give her the full story. He tried to come up with something that would convince her fast enough, something she would know was right not because he said so, but because it made sense.
"Hannah think!" he said, "If they were meant to be shown off down below, then why are they up here where nobody is!?"
Hannah retreated at his outburst. "Jani said this is where you told him to put them," she mumbled.
"Argh! Hannah, I swear, I'll explain everything later, but right now I need… your…"
A high-pitched whistle cut him short. It echoed through the cave and was picked up by another, then another, and another; too many, a part of Gaster's thoughts realized. The sounds mixed with their own echoes, becoming an overlapping, one-note song hundreds of voices strong. The feathers Grillby had collected in his pocket began to vibrate. He pulled them out and they started to whistle as well.
They were too late.
.
As the light above New Home faded into nothing, Teresa sat high above the city, looking over it from the cliffside that led to Waterfall. She'd had a fun few hours roaming around lake-filled caves, it was not often she got to visit other places, and she liked water, even though all of her friends told her she should stay away from it whenever possible. But they weren't there this time, so she had some fun while she could.
Fur dripping onto the stone beneath her, Teresa scanned the city and found what she was looking for with little effort. Jani had been right. Grillby had decided to help them after all! She was able to pick out his glow in the street easily, and that was the signal.
She picked up the feather Hannah had given her and she had been careful not to get wet while she was having her fun. With a shake, it turned from blue to red and the she blew on it softly, causing the feather to vibrate and let out a soft whistle, sending its signal to all the other feathers above them.
.
The feathers in his hand were enough to drag Gaster out of his daze. Without thinking, he grabbed Hannah and sprinted down the pillar. He ran in the direction the area that he knew he had cleaned off, draining the last of his energy reserve to push himself forward, and ignored Hannah's protesting squirms as he kept on.
He felt the first explosion before he head it. The ground rumbled beneath his feet as a burst of light suddenly cast his shadow in front of him, and he nearly stopped to look back. Then the sound came, louder than anything he had ever experienced, the sheer force of it nearly knocked him off his feet.
He kept running, while the world fell apart behind him.
.
Grillby grabbed Jani by the collar of his shirt and threw him against a wall. "How could you do something like this and smile about it?" he growled at the monster. "How can you just let monsters die this way?"
The snake just laughed, and Grillby couldn't hold his anger back any longer. He slugged the monster square across the jaw, but that just made him laugh harder. And the words he said next would ring in his mind forever.
"Victory requires sacrifice, Grillby. Monsters should know that better than anyone."
The first sign was a sound, like a taught wire snapping. It echoed over the entire city, growing louder as it went. The noise from the celebrations in the street ceased as others heard it. Then, it slowly built into a deep rumble. By then, everyone was looking up and they watched in horror as the rock above them began shift and move like it had suddenly become flowing water.
"You lose," Jani said to him.
Grillby barely heard the words. He turned as he saw a part of the city's roof start to sag, a bubble on the surface of a boiling pot in reverse. All the while the explosions continued to echo through the air. Then, the ceiling started to crack. It was singular at first, but then it cascaded off, becoming thousands. Finally, the ceiling could hold itself up no longer.
And the stone began to fall.
.
Serena had stopped in the middle of the street. All of the monsters around her had as well when they started hearing the noises, but none of them were as panicked as her. Immediately she knew this was what Grillby had been talking about: the prank his friends were planning, only something was very, very wrong.
As the rock began to fall in the distance, she screamed.
.
Toriel and Asgore watched in horror from the outskirts of the city, having arrived just as the light of the day had faded completely. The king's instincts immediately took over, and he shouted for the nearest guard and began giving orders: quell panic, evacuate, try to stop whatever possible, and ready rescue teams. All of this washed over the surface of his thoughts while deep down, dread sunk into him.
Toriel could do nothing but stare as chunks of stone and crystal fell toward the cavern floor. In all her nightmares, in all her planning for every eventuality for her people, she had never seen this. Her mind fogged over, unable to comprehend it; unable to believe it. And dancing with it all was a question:
How could this happen?
.
Patrick caught himself laughing as his fellow scientist stared out at the destruction before them, and found he didn't care. There was no way he could be heard over the sound anyway.
The sky was falling, right over the castle. It would crush the kingdom's unshakeable foundation to dust, and Patrick knew, just as those around them would soon, that this was what needed to happen, so they could all get what they want.
That was why he laughed. This was a time of joy! And it would go down in history as such.
.
Gaster ran with every last scrap of energy he had. He did not stop, even though every footfall became unsure, even though the world was breaking around him, and his back felt like he had fallen into the magma surrounding the lab, he did not stop.
Hannah had stopped struggling after the rumbling first began, becoming a lump in his arms. Gaster did not slow until long after the rumbling had stopped. When it did, his hearing rang. His breath sounded incredibly loud yet strangely muted to him. Finally, unable to lift his feet high enough, he tripped and tumbled to the ground.
For a moment, he just laid there as shock took hold of him. Then he heard Hannah coughing and he snapped out of his daze, forcing himself to rise. But what he saw as he finally turned back made him freeze once more as tears began to fall down his face.
.
Grillby fell to his knees, and he too cried. He could not recall a single moment in his life before where he had done that. He had not cried as a kid when some toy broke or something didn't go his way like most kids did. He was an orphan; he knew life wasn't fair. And he never cried about that either. He didn't cry when he learned that the accident that had awoken his Resonance had stolen the memories of the first part of his life. But as he watched the stone fall on the city, he wept.
The first rocks, nearly the size of houses, struck the upper towers of the castle and made them topple as if they were made of nothing more than sand. More fell, burying the structure in its entirety. Some of the rock rolled before coming to a stop, crushing the wall where he had spent so many nights staring out to the city and looking forward to the next day.
As the castle was crushed, he felt himself become crushed too. He fell on his hands as the rumbling finally quieted and was slowly replaced by the sounds of the city in horror.
Monsters ran all around him, trying to get away. A few were not. They stared dumbfounded like him. They too were crying.
Jani let out an uproarious laugh behind him. "Now do you see?" he said. "This is how you bring change!" Then he leaned close, whispering in his ear. "I hope you enjoy rotting away." Then he was gone.
Grillby, too numb to do anything else, continues to stare up at the ruins of the castle and of his first, real home. He let the monster get away as armored hands seized him.
See? I told you it wasn't a continuity error.
