Soaring high above the clouds, Sakamoto kept everyone entertained by telling stories about dragonkind, and it was really very fascinating how the various clans of dragons interacted with each other. Toriel, Tobias, Gaster, Leopold, Gerald, Seiichi listened with rapt attention as the young "prince" spoke at length about one of the most famous meetings of all, when dragons went to the "New World", to a land filled with beautiful jungles, trees tall as skyscrapers, canopies filled with strange and unusual animals, and insects astoundingly large!

"The size of the mosquitos was so enormous some of them were as large as a human hand!" Sakamoto confessed as he slightly shook his head back and forth, the sun beaming down upon them from above. Thankfully it was nice weather at the moment and they weren't chilly despite being so high in the sky. It helped that one, Toriel could, in a pinch, summon a small fireball for all of them to crowd around in midair and two, Sakamoto being so large, his natural body heat kept them rather warm anyway. "So naturally, my great-great-great-grandfather, of whom I share the name, was complaining loudly, smacking them away, and angrily grumbling when he heard laughter ringing through the trees. And down they descended upon bright wings…the Rainbow Serpents, led by the greatest, most powerful and most beautiful of them all, Quetzalcoatl. His scales shone like beautiful gemstones in the light that cascaded through the canopy above, his wings of every color of the rainbow, and his eyes were deep as pools, and laughter almost just as deep!"

"What'd he say?"

"He said "if you think the mosquitos are bad, wait until you see the leeches on your legs!" And that's when my ancestor looked down and saw the leeches. He'd THOUGHT he'd been bitten there, more mosquitos driving him insane but no, t'was not mosquitos at all. It was leeches. Leeches, the size of your FIST! Big, blackish purple things, faintly pulsating, sucking on his blood, and all of his compatriots just stood there, staring at…the Leech Maaaaan!" Sakamoto proclaimed dramatically, as Tobias and everyone giggled and laughed a bit.

"My, my, my, the poor thing! Whatever did he do?"

"Luckily, Quetzalcoatl's people were VERY used to such things. Salt is the key. They poured salt on the leeches and they dissolved off of his legs, and they brought him to their city deep in the depths of the Amazon, a city of beautiful gold. Gold lined the buildings, gold lined the road, the signs were gold, the lettering on every signpost was a type of gold! It was beaaaautiful." Sakamoto intoned. "Quite naturally, because they had years and years and years of living with it, the rainbow serpents, these serpentine-esque dragons had no clue how much my kind valued it. We naturally pleaded for some. We'd give them anything, we said. No, better, we'd give them EVERYTHING. Quetzalcoatl was a little surprised by this, and he admitted that he'd be happy to give some to us for free. They already had everything they could ever want, what could we offer them? But…well, my ancestor cared about his honor, and you can't give something precious without giving something back, even a gift deserves some kind of gift in return."

"What did they give them?"

"My ancestor realized they'd never…well…enjoyed relations with people like them. Quetzalcoatl's kind were just fine with enjoying humans, they had quite a splendid time with them. But they'd never gotten to experience another breed of dragon. So that night there was an enormous banquet and many…MANY carnal relations indeed."

Toriel deeply blushed. "Oh MY OH MY." She murmured. "How shameless indeed!"

"You're lucky being in the New World means you're out of jurisdiction of the Pope!" Tobias laughed. "Dunno about God, though. Leviticus is about lying with man, but you're not "men" so I don't…THINK it counts…" He remarked, scratching his head.

"Evidently the Rainbow Serpents were…very smooth." Sakamoto confessed. "Needless to say, quite a few of us and quite a few of them ended up pregnant, and we now no doubt share some of each other's traits, passed down from this grand meeting we had so many years ago. We keep in touch, naturally, just like we do with other clans, and many of them developed arms, just as our own bodies became more serpentine." Sakamoto went on. "Quetzalcoatl's still doing quite well too! But he's worried about the arrival of the Spanish people, they have their eyes on the New World, and they hunger for glory and gold in equal amounts."

"I hunger for some dumplings, I am staaaaarving." Seiichi confessed. "A nice vegetable dumpling is so delectable."

"Do you ever miss eating meat?" Toriel inquired, Seiichi looking at her, tilting his head.

"I'm surprised to hear you say that, I thought puca were vegetarians?"

"Oh no, no, we can eat just about anything." Toriel remarked as she shook her head back and forth. "In a pinch, leather will do. If you roast it in a fire, you can nourish yourself with pieces of it. Old family trick!" She told them with a wink. "Passed down from Roman times."

"Well, we haven't any leather on us at the moment." Gerald intoned with a sigh. "But I'm VERY hungry myself. Of course, in a pinch, I think we all know who we'd have to eat if things got bad."

"Oh no no no no no!" Seiichi said quickly, picking up on what Gerald was suggesting as the UFO-shaped monster chuckled a bit. "You wouldn't want to eat me, I…I'm very fatty. No lean meat at all! Besides, I'm chewy!"

"And how would you know that?" Gerald sniggered as the others chuckled a bit at the dark humor, Seiichi drawing himself up proudly.

"I was able to convince a pack of wolves not to tear me apart by having one of them sample me. It hurt a lot, but I…" He flinched, but drew in a deep breath. "But I cut off a piece of my side and roasted it up and fed it to him. They weren't just amazed and touched by my willingness to do that, but the taste of my body turned them off completely from ever touching human again." He confessed. "My instructor was actually very, very impressed when I told him about this. He said it showed a remarkable amount of luck and ingenuity."

"You know…" Leopold hesitated, then spoke. "You're hard on yourself when it comes to how you test at your school. You find it difficult to study and to know the answers to the questions of Buddhism and you keep saying it's hard for you to remember all the tenets. But you're not a stupid person." He offered, gently taking Seiichi's hand. "You're really not. You're just intelligent in a different way, in a more intuitive way."

"Yes, when you want to be, you are extraordinarily clever, your use of those flying RATS against the mongols was a stroke of genius." Gaster complimented. "There's nothing really wrong with not being able to memorize every single specific. As the saying goes, no plan survives contact with the enemy, more often than not, one must fight and learn by the seat of their pants."

"Does that mean heroes don't need plans?" Seiichi chuckled, shaking his head.

"Of course they do. They also need to learn to think on the fly when the plans tend to not go well. Plan B is usually always the one that ends up working anyhow." Gaster laughed. "But I must confess that I, too, am feeling really very hungry myself. We should stop to get something to eat."

"We're only a few hours from our destination." Sakamoto promised. "…buuuut I'm feeling very starved myself. I think it best we touch down and find some food to eat. I'll take us down below. Be prepared, though, I can feel it's gotten far colder down there." He admitted as they all immediately huddled around Toriel, who held up her palms and created a little burning, pulsating fireball in her grip with a FWOOM. Sakamoto nodded back in approval, and then slid his way down, down past the clouds.

Sure enough, it was now beginning to snow, flakes of frost twisting and cascading down. They all shuddered a bit as Sakamoto descended further down, down towards the ocean, taking notice of an island off in the distance. "Ah! Lambay Island. We can find shelter there."

"Oh, the poor people of Lambay have endured so much. Villainous Vikings pillaged it horribly many years ago." Toriel sighed sadly. "They tell monstrous stories about it's ravaging in church circles, the buildings burnt alive, poor monks left naked and butchered. The people of the island managed to rebuild though, and they make a most delightful whiskey…and rabbit stew recipe that they've shared with many a fellow nun."

"Mmm, rabbit stew does sound quite good right about now." Sakamoto confessed.

"I'll just take a stew. Sans rabbit." Sakamoto insisted as they finally descended down towards the land, touching down by some long plains with the faint frosting of snow as Tobias knelt down, feeling over the texture of the snow.

"It's so light and fluffy!" He remarked. "I just love snow." He confessed with a sigh to the others as monks and priests looked out from the ramparts of the monastery not far away, astounded at the new arrivals. "It always makes everything look so…fresh and pure when it covers the ground. Like a brand new sheet of parchment you could write anything on." He said wistfully.

Meanwhile, in Dublin Town, everyone was holed up as the rain that had been cascading down before had now become snow. Big, thick, enormous flakes were cascading down in a regular rhythm from the quilt of grey and dark grey clouds above, now seven weeks had passed and people were beginning to get sick. Very, very sick. Their very lowbrow technique of tossing garbage and refuse and other waste at each other had worked too well. Now folks had to set up quarantine zones inside of Dublin and those infected had to make it very clear they WERE infected.

Those who were horribly ravaged by the disease were now bound up in big, thick wraps. Their faces were covered, their mouths were covered, they huddled together, tightly clutching their own bodies and shambling down the road. Every bit of their body looked as though it had been wrapped up, as if someone had put them into tight-fitting cocoons of bandages as they made their way slowly across the streets or kept together in their homes.

The food supplies were beginning to run lower still. Try as they might, the fish were not exactly biting at the moment. Or perhaps they were, nobody could tell because the damn ocean had frozen over. Or at least, the spot where they were had, because it was so astoundingly cold. So therefore, in desperation, they'd asked those who could handle the freezing cold the best to make their way out there, drilling through to do ice fishing.

Solomon, luckily, was happy to help along with Captain Abel Rogers and Erimentha. They were currently out on the ice, with lines trailing down into the water below, Solomon having cut holes in the ice with his claws for them to use. Meanwhile, Hadiya and Elisud were hard at work trying to make up cures for the disease that was currently ravaging them.

"How do you feel?" Elisud wanted to know, looking his current patient over he was trying his new cure on. He was currently in a small little bubble of green energy as he set down a small cup full of liquid for the patient to try as Hadiya wiped her brow. The patient slowly removed the covering over their mouth, and their voice, croaky and hoarse, was so full of pain it was almost impossible to tell this had once been a 14 year old girl.

"Awful, sir. I feel as though I'm burning up." She murmured, as they saw her tongue was rather bloody. "I realized I had this plague when my eyes got all reddened and I started sneezing so much-"

She quickly covered her mouth to suppress a horrible bout of sneezing as Hadiya cringed, shaking her head back and forth as she looked to Eli. Yes, those were all symptoms of the awful plague that was ravaging Dublin Town at the moment. Coughing, sneezing, a hoarseness of the voice, a thirst you couldn't quench, being unable to sleep, sores, feeling incredibly hot, vomiting, diarrhea…and finally death.

Even the vultures couldn't bring themselves to hang around a town like this. Though they had certainly tried. That had been the first sign something had gone wrong. A few days after Elisud had arrived, the rain had seemingly stopped, though the "feel" of the air made it clear it would soon snow. Then as Erimentha and Hadiya had been preparing Eli to signal to Cu Chulainn to come in, to sweep his forces in a pincer movement to attack the monsters from behind as they raced out from Dublin on the other end, well…then they'd found the bodies lying in the alleyway.

Bodies that looked so ravaged that vultures nearby were disgustingly shying away from them. One or two occasionally picked at the sore-covered, half-crusted-with-vomit forms…and then just took off, soaring up through the air.

"Please tell me I'm not going to die." The fourteen year old begged as Elisud looked at her, almost heartbroken. He couldn't help but feel horrified by all this. He kept TRYING to heal people, but the standard healing magic wasn't working. He had thought simply "laying on hands" would do it, he'd tried it on several patients before, rubbing over their wrapped-up backs while in the same small bubble he was in but despite the green balm bathing over them and the patients FEELING better…they weren't cured. The symptoms just went away or lessened quite a bit so they were more comfortable.

"Does…does this current cure work?" Elisud asked. "Please, give it a try." He asked of her. His voice was almost just as pleading as the fourteen year old sipped from the cup. Hadiya watched with bated breath as the girl smacked her lips.

"…I don't feel as hot anymore." She offered, the tongue she had no now longer bleeding, but…they could see she still had the sores. "I feel better."

"Get some rest, it's…it's all I can offer now." Elisud murmured as the young girl nodded, putting her covering back up over her mouth as Elisud buried his face in his hands, Hadiya looking sadly over at him as the patient exited the room and went back to her family upstairs in the bedroom. "…I hate this. I hate being so powerless. I finally, finally have a chance to do some true good with my powers and…and nothing. Nothing I do is working. It is almost like some sort of cruel joke." He murmured. "I finally had become comfortable in my magical skills and now they fail me when I need it most." He softly mumbled as his magical shield faded.

Hadiya took hold of his shoulders and shook him. "We have to keep trying! So stop it." Hadiya insisted. "I know you want to cry. I know you want to just let it all out. But we don't have time for any self-pity. There's a lot of people, a LOT of people who can and will die if we don't keep trying to find a cure, if you don't keep trying."

"What would help was if I knew if the monsters were enduring this. But if they are, we sure can't see it. They've remained in their tents except for the heavily armored guards." Elisud murmured. "They got exposed to the same disgusting things we were. They should be infected too, right?"

"Yes. Yes, if they AREN'T infected, we could find out what they did and do that to cure us!" Hadiya reasoned. "And if they are infected, maybe…just maybe Prince Asgore will listen to us. Maybe we can reach out to him and combine our resources to find a cure. His father might be refusing to listen to reason, but Asgore seems far nicer than him, and a lot more reasonable."

"Could you sneak out of the town and get to him?" Elisud inquired of Hadiya as she smiled.

"Consider it done." She told him. "But I'm going to need a distraction so those guards don't see me descending the wall." She confessed as Elisud looked out the nearby window, letting out a whistle.

"I don't think you'll need a distraction soon, because the way the snow's coming down harder, I don't think even the guards can see anything out there." Elisud admitted. "Maybe…go at night. It'll be even harder to see you." He suggested.

Out on the ice, Abel was nervously jittering his leg, biting his lip. They'd actually had some surprising luck, quite a few fish had now been collected into the buckets they had as Eri looked up at him from her line.

"Captain, you okay?"

The man cringed, his heterochromatic eyes gazing back at her. "I don't like admitting this, Ms. Erimentha, but the truth is…well, you remember when I told you and Hadiya about how my village turned to a more…unpleasant god? One below the waves?" He murmured. "Well, I think he's come for me. At night, I can faintly hear him. It's like he has his fingers creeping up the base of my spine all the way to the nape of my neck." He told her as Solomon solemnly gazed at his friend, the were-spider having coated himself up in as thick a layer of clothing as possible because he absolutely despised the cold.

"I've heard and seen far stranger things." Eri admitted. "I believe you. But why would he be coming after you? I mean, you're just some random captain."

"Because he wants all of us. Because I left, and that's the one thing that people…no, he's not a "person"." Abel spat on the ice below. "Things…like him can't accept. Nobody leaves paradise. Everyone should want to be with him and if you don't, well…he'll make you pay. Have you begging to come back. And this time, should I come back…I'll never, ever escape." Abel murmured. "I don't like that type of…god. I want one who doesn't…doesn't want to hurt you for leaving. That's not a god. That's…that's a drunken father."

"Don't you believe in Hell?" Eri asked.

"You don't get "sent" to Hell…you choose to go there. That's not HIM hurting you for leaving. That's you hurting yourself." Abel mumbled. "Though…maybe I've already chosen because I just went along with the rest of my village when I should have tried to run. Or fight back. Maybe I took too long. But I like those Christian teachings…the idea that nobody who truly wants it is beyond forgiveness if they're sincere, and want to do right. I want to do right. But I'm scared. And I haven't been sleeping in days." Abel murmured. "Isn't the Devil so much stronger than a man?"

"I don't know." Eri confessed. "But I remember one thing I heard about him that I liked. He only has what you've already given him." She remarked. "Don't give him an inch. Because that really ends up a mile."

"And if you're really unable to sleep…how about this? We'll take turns sleeping with you." Solomon added. "What're friends for?"

"Friends." Abel sighed with a smile. "A single soul dwelling in two bodies."

"Oooh, Aristotle!" Eri said with a grin. "I LOVE Aristotle."

"I grew up reading about the Greek philosophers, who's your favorite?" Abel inquired.

"Oh, Socrates, he's got a great wit. Whenever I'm reading it, it's like…" Eri tried to put the words in her head out her mouth. "…a sort of…biting sense to what he says. Like he can't believe you're being so stupid. His words come off like he's wielding a knife!"

"Indeed, especially that trial, I did like reading the trial." Abel laughed. "That's a great tale. How did you come to read of him? Did your family collect much works?"

"The Trial of Socrates has become something of a big time play where I'm from." Eri admitted. "Though it's still not as good on the stage as it is in my head-"

And then the ice beneath them began to crack as they all gazed down…

A giant, murderous-looking, distinctly inhuman eye gazing back up at them all.

….he…had arrived.