(51)
"I had no idea he could do something like this… In all the time I've known him he's joked, but never done…" The wolf monster, Teresa, paused and sniffled, looking down at the table between them. The two sat in one of the private rooms in the Guard Hall, a section of which had become the relief center in response to…
No, she would not think of it.
Toriel handed the other monster a handkerchief and she blew her nose before continuing. "I didn't think he could ever hurt anyone," she went on, "not even on accident. I mean, sure, he's decked some monsters before, but only if they needed it, you know? Get them to stop thinking it's hopeless." Toriel nodded in understanding, though truly she did not. The girl seemed to believe several things that contradicted themselves, but that could be sorted through later, if need be. She let her continue. "I don't know how Grillby could have gone crazy like that. Jani just wanted the old times back, but this…" She broke down completely that time, hands thrown over her face and massive shoulders spasming up and down.
Toriel stood up. "Thank you for telling us this," she told her. She sympathized with the monster. This day was not an easy one. Toriel's own sorrow was buried deep. It was difficult, more difficult than any other thing she could remember having to do in her life, but she needed to stay strong for her people, now more than ever.
Her night had been trying to gather information. Asgore had dealt with the fallout, clearing the area, setting up aid tents, and sending search and rescue teams into the rubble to stabilize it from any further damage and see if anyone still inside the castle made it out alive. She had been pulling aside anyone who might give her some piece to what had happened. Guard who had seen Grillby and Gaster that morning, the scientists to ask after Gaster's behavior, but Teresa had come on her own, sneaking in among the wounded and displaced to seek her and her husband out personally. And she had an interesting piece to the puzzle. She had to think of it as nothing more than that. She would not let her emotions get the best of her, not now.
She would find the truth. That was all that mattered next to pulling her kingdom up from catastrophe.
.
Grillby sat in a jail cell for the second time in his life. This time, he was alone. The silence made him feel like he was stuck in another world, or perhaps another time, reliving that moment over and over.
He had stared at the devastation his former friend had wrought, unconscious of all that went on around him, as the Guard cuffed him and dragged him away to where he was now. He didn't scream out his innocence, he didn't try to tell them what had really happened, because in that moment, he did feel guilty. Guilty of not doing enough to prevent it, and guilty of not being strong enough to stop it.
Only one question escaped his lips before he was put behind bars, "Did anyone get hurt?" To which the guardsman dragging him by the arm looked down in disgust. After that, Grillby shut down completely, thinking there was no way it could've gotten any worse.
That was, until Serena and threw him against a wall.
"Why?" she demanded.
He couldn't remember hearing the door open, hadn't even registered her presence until she had grabbed him by his ragged shirt collar and pulled him from the ground. A part of Grillby's mind registered that he couldn't remember ever seeing her as angry as she was at that moment. Not in the moment they had met or since.
"Why did you do it?" she repeated. "I thought you were better than that now, but you just had all of us fooled into believing someone like you could change, didn't you?"
Her words were enough to pull him out of his daze. "I didn't do this," he voiced. "I tried to stop it."
She responded by slamming him into the wall again. "Don't you dare lie to me!" she screamed. "You said to me yourself that they would never try to do anything without you. Well guess what? Something sure as hell happened!"
"I was wrong," oh so wrong, he thought, "and I didn't know he was going to do anything like this."
She shook her head. "Not good enough, Grillby. We have two of your friends, the wolf and the bird. Both of them say that you and Gaster were the ones behind this, and that they were left in the dark too." So it had worked, just like Jani planned then. "Someone had to know something about what happened, and from the terror in their eyes I'd believe they were telling the truth long before you. Both of them say Gaster made the explosives, and the wolf said you were the one to give her the signal to set them off. We have Gaster too, and even he admits to making them. You're the only one with a different story, so start telling the truth. Right. Now."
"Gaster thought they were just some toys that would make some light and some sound! He didn't know they would do this!"
"That's not what he's claiming."
"What?" It took him a moment for the realization to come to him. He was taking the guilt harder even than he was – hard enough to believe it was actually his fault? "Oh, Gaster," he sighed.
"Face it," the water monster let him go and he slumped back to the ground. "You're done lying."
Grillby struggled back to his feet, still half numb. "Serena," he said, "I swear I had nothing to do with this. I was set up!"
For a long moment, Serena just glared back at him. Then she said, "You made me let my guard down. Despite everything I told myself about you, I let you in. And now I hoped you'd be able to tell me the truth for once in your life, now that you've destroyed everything. I was wrong; you're not a criminal, you're scum."
Serena made for the door to the cell, and Grillby tried to stop her.
"Wait! This was Jani's plan from the beginning! He roped Gaster and me into this with half-truths so that by the time we really knew what was going on we were too deep."
"And so you, in your oh-so-infinite wisdom, tried to take matters into your own hand and be a hero?" Serena spun to face him. "If you really wanted this stopped, why didn't you call the Guard? Why didn't you call me?"
He said nothing. There was nothing he could say.
"There's nothing that will convince me you didn't cause this, one way or another," she said. "Not anymore."
She slammed the door shut behind her.
Grillby could barely process what had just happened afterwards. For a long while, the thoughts and questions he had floated above him, out of his reach. Then finally they began to drift in, the biggest being, what did he do now?
Was there anything he could do? If any of what Serena said was true then Jani's plan had worked flawlessly, and any denials from him would fall on deaf ears. This time, he was likely to rot where he sat. He'd had his lucky break already, and he had wasted it.
That time, he was aware enough to hear the metal door to his cell screech open. The fire monster half hoped Serena had returned to take out more anger on him, maybe try to reason with her more. But it wasn't her, it was Asgore.
The king stood over him, dressed in full armor. Not the ceremonial set he normally saw him in, with its gilding and intricately-locking plates, no. This was armor made to be used, and from the scratches on it he certainly had.
Asgore held up a small flame in one hand, adding to Grillby's own dim light. He looked down at him, not with disgust as everyone else had, but with disappointment. He wasn't sure what was worse.
"I have nothing to say," Grillby told him. "You wouldn't believe me anyway."
The king surprised him by saying, "I believe you didn't plan for this to happen."
The fire monster's eyes shot up to meet his, the disappointment hadn't wavered. "I didn't," Grillby affirmed. "I tried to stop it! I-"
Asgore held up a hand, silencing him. "I believe you didn't plan for this to happen," he repeated. Then added, "I have watched you enough over the months to know you are not the kind of monster capable of something like this. And that is why I am the only monster willing to hear your side of the story at the moment. So speak; the truth, as you believe it."
Grillby told him everything, from the first time Jani had showed up at the bar up until that day. With every word that poured out of him, he couldn't help but feel like it was something he should have done long ago, and that it was too little too late regardless of what Asgore said he believed.
The king listened passively, standing still as statue while Grillby spoke. When he finished, the boss monster turned to the wall, and said, "Thirty seven."
Grillby looked up at his back. "What?"
"Thirty seven: that was the number of monsters we kept in employ at the castle to handle its upkeep."
Grillby felt something shatter inside of him. "Oh god…" he breathed.
"You are very lucky," the king continued, "that most of them were at parties in the city this evening. There was one monster in the castle when it began, and they were able to outrun the worst of it, but their fear and shock caused them to Fall Down. Several other monsters in the city suffered the same shock. In others, their panic caused them to lash out. The Guard had to quell three riots in as many districts, riots that led to even more damage to the city."
"So… no one was killed?" Grillby hesitated.
"No," the king agreed, "but I want you to understand the full gravity of what occurred this day. The damage done to the city will take months to repair. The damage done to the minds of monsters will take much longer, years perhaps. Their faith in us, in each other, has been shaken in a way that it hasn't been since we warred with humanity centuries ago. Some even believe they have returned to torment us further. I fear things may never be the same. Your actions may yet undo this kingdom."
"My actions?!" Grillby shouted, jumping to his feet. "I thought you said-"
The towering monster took a single step forward. It was enough to cut Grillby short.
"You may not have wanted this to happen, my child, but it did happen. And it was your actions – nay, your inactions – that caused this just as much as your friend's mania. You had every opportunity to tell the queen or myself about your encounters and about your fear, but you chose not to."
"I didn't-!" the fire monster began, but he was cut short once more.
"You didn't trust us enough, and that much I understand."
Grillby clenched his fists at his sides. "Do you?" he asked.
"More than you may think. I, too, have known betrayal in my lifetime, from monster just as much as human. But it is the duty of a leader to push their personal feelings aside; to trust, even when they feel they should not. To do otherwise can only lead to ruin, as this day surely shows."
Grillby couldn't hold himself back any longer. "To hell with duty!" he shouted. His fist landed against Asgore's mid without thinking. He had thrown his strength behind it, enhancement magic and all, but the monster looked as though he barely felt it. "You act like you have all the answers, but you don't! That was why you let me on as an advisor in the first place, wasn't it? And I know I don't either; you showed me that.
"All I wanted was to tell Jani that I was wrong, we were all wrong, but… If I had known he was that far gone, I would have told someone before…" Before he knew it, the tears were falling again. "I didn't want any of this!" he cried.
This king knelt down so he was eye level with the other monster. He took him by the shoulders and drew his eyes to his own. The disappointment was still there, but it was usurped by something else. Concern, Grillby realized, and also something deeper.
"Life is not over yet," he told him, "though it may seem it in the days to come. I cannot spare you or Gaster from punishment for what happened today, and would not. But it is not the end, not so long as you still breathe."
"Then what do I do?" Grillby pleaded.
Asgore gripped his shoulders tighter. "You start by saying the most important words someone can say."
"What are they?"
"That is something you must find out for yourself."
The king smiled at the fire monster, but to Grillby it felt mocking.
"Really?" the monster shoved the hands off his shoulders. "So you're gonna come down here and spew philosophy at me? Well you can shove it, old man! Do you know why? Because you're not above blame for this either. Where were you, huh? You weren't even in the city! You preach about always knowing what monsters are thinking and yet no one saw this coming. So if I'm damned," he turned his back on the king, "then we're all damned. And you better hope you find Jani, because if you think this is the end of this, you're wrong."
Asgore straightened and left the cell without another word. He had said what he could to the boy, the rest was on him to figure out. What more, he was right:
This was far from over.
Those who follow my twitter are probably mad at me now for the inclusion of a certain question in this chapter. But doing stuff like that is best part of this job, so there!
