Just to let people know, there's at least one f-bomb in this chapter. You have been warned. ^.^
Also, we've had a couple suggestions for titles for this series, (as well as someone saying they liked one of the titles we'd already come up with) so our list of possible series titles has grown longer:
The Magic of Souls (1)
Tales of Monsters, Humans, and Fairies
Fairies and Monsters Gone Fowl
Stories About Fairies, Monsters, and Two Bizarre Humans
Remember, if you come up with a possible name for the series, be sure to tell us your suggestion in the comments!
Visiting that blogger he'd found online wasn't nearly as helpful as Sans might've hoped.
That wasn't to say it was a waste of time – if nothing else, they had a solid secondary source of information to confirm some things they suspected. However, the man had had absolutely nothing new to tell them – it was all stuff they'd already known or strongly suspected.
Even Sans was getting a little frustrated at the lack of info by the time he and the weed left via the man's front door, which of course meant that Flowey was about two steps away from going rabid.
"Well, that was helpful – not!" The flower snarled, dropping the curious child facade he'd put on when they'd entered the building. "'Fairies have advanced technology that allows them to fly!' 'Fairies can turn invisible or otherwise disappear in the blink of an eye!' 'Fairies can make people lose their memories!' Idiot, we already knew that!"
Sans shrugged. "Eh, tough luck. Guess fairies are good at covering their tracks."
The flower ignored him, still grumbling complaints. Sans let the brat be – it wasn't his place to make the little abomination behave, that was Frisk and their ghostly hitchhiker's job – and pulled his phone out of his pocket, lazily texting a brief update to the kid. Even if they hadn't found anything useful, letting Frisk know couldn't hurt.
The phone suddenly rang just as he was about to put it away. Blinking, the skeleton glanced at the caller I.D, one brow rising.
Huh. What's Tori calling me for? With another shrug, he answered it.
"'Sup, Tori?"
"Sans." The skeleton was immediately on alert – Toriel was audibly upset, her voice shaking and strained. Whatever she'd called him for, it wasn't good. "We need you at the police station. Please, hurry."
"What happened?"
She took in a trembling breath, and in the pause between said breath and her next words, Sans thought he could hear someone shouting in the background that sounded suspiciously like Undyne.
"Frisk's been kidnapped."
Sans almost dropped the phone in shock. His first instinct was to blurt out "how," because this was Frisk they were talking about here, who was so paranoid they'd wake up from a deep sleep at the drop of a pin, but, well, that'd be a waste of time.
"On my way," was what he said instead, and hung up, quickly stuffing his phone into his pocket again. "We're taking a shortcut, weed, hold on."
"What? No no no, no shortcuts-!"
But by the time the flower had started protesting, Sans had already taken a step. The world went black for a nanosecond, magic unfamiliar to most other monsters swirling around them, and then they were in front of the police station doors, and Flowey was groaning.
"Ugh, I don't even think I have a stomach and I'm gonna barf -"
The flower's protests were cut off by a new round of shouting from, yup, Undyne. She was straining against two human officers, who were struggling to keep ahold of her arms while she screamed at another human in handcuffs in the cart in front of her, and she looked positively furious.
"TELL ME WHERE THE HELL THEY ARE BEFORE I SUPLEX YOU INTO NEXT WEEK! NO, BEFORE I SUPLEX YOU AND THAT STUPID CART INTO NEXT WEEK AND FILL YOUR MOUTH FULL OF SPEARS!"
"I don't know where they are!" The handcuffed human whimpered. He was shaking so hard that Sans was honestly surprised that the guy wasn't toppling over from sheer terror. "I-I already –"
"YOU THINK I'M GONNA BUY THAT AMNESIA SHTICK, SCUMBAG?!"
"Sans." The skeleton turned around to find Tori hovering behind him, looking relieved and worried, and for once apparently not feeling like correcting Undyne's coarse language. Papyrus was twiddling his thumbs worriedly next to her, but still managed the skeletal equivalent of a shaky smile at Sans.
"What happened?"
"Yeah, what the heck happened?!" Flowey demanded, still more miffed about the sudden shortcut than anything else. "Trashbag didn't tell me anything before, you know, stepping across freaking time and space!"
The Boss Monster took a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself.
"Frisk and I were walking down a street," she began, still visibly shaken despite her efforts. "We were… taking a day off from their ambassador duties. While we were walking, there was an explosion in one of the shops. I cast a few flame walls to keep the normal fire away from the survivors, and then...I heard a sound and turned around, and that man there," she nodded to the terrified prisoner in the police cart, "had knocked Frisk out and was fleeing. I couldn't chase after him, not without leaving the people trapped by the flames to d-die..."
Her voice hitched at the very end of that sentence, and she went quiet, obviously not trusting herself to speak anymore.
"You mean..." Flowey began, very slowly and in a very, very dangerous tone of voice, "Frisk got kidnapped?!" The flower's head whipped around to glower at the prisoner in the cart, his entire face twisting into an expression that could very easily be called someone's worst nightmare.
"I'LL KILL HIM!" Vines decorated with red thorns erupted from inside the flower's pot, writhing in the air around him like the tentacles of a frenzied octopus.
"Whoa there, bud." Sans quickly snagged the angry abomination with blue magic – it may have been harder to hold onto him without a soul, but not impossible – before the weed could do whatever it was he was going to do. "No killing. Remember the promise to Frisk?"
"I don't give a single fuck about that promise! I'M GONNA KILL HIM!"
"FLOWEY, MURDER IS NOT THE ANSWER TO OUR CURRENT PREDICAMENT!" Papyrus scolded. "AND UNDYNE, DON'T SUPLEX THE HUMAN! IT WILL NOT HELP!"
Undyne, who had been steadily dragging the officers trying to hold her back with her as she had advanced threateningly towards the cart, shot the skeleton an incredulous look. "But Papyrus, he –"
"WE CANNOT FIND FRISK IF YOU SUPLEX HIM INTO NEXT WEEK!" That visibly calmed her – she stopped advancing with a grunt and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like I hate it when you make sense.
Now satisfied that neither Flowey nor Undyne were going to attack the man in cuffs, Papyrus marched forward himself, coming right up to the side of the cart to look the human prisoner full in the face. "YOU SAID YOU DO NOT REMEMBER KIDNAPPING FRISK?"
The man nodded, eyes wide and leaning back away from the tall skeleton.
"THEN WHAT IS THE VERY LAST THING YOU REMEMBER BEFORE NOT REMEMBERING THE KIDNAPPING?"
He bit his lip for a moment, eyeing the still dangerously angry monsters hovering around the cart, then looked back at Papyrus. "A voice. Someone was talking to me..."
"WAS IT A MUSICAL-SOUNDING VOICE?"
He nodded.
"AND WHAT ABOUT BEFORE THAT?"
"I… had just gotten down from a cart?"
"WAS THIS THE SAME CART THE POLICE HUMANS FOUND YOU IN?"
"I think so?"
Papyrus beamed at him. "WELL THEN, WE CAN USE THAT INFORMATION TO START LOOKING FOR FRISK! YOUR CART DRIVER MIGHT KNOW WHERE YOU WENT! OR PERHAPS WE COULD ASK ABOUT THAT CART, AND SEE IF SOMEONE SAW IT GOING ANYWHERE! OR CHECK TO SEE HOW TIRED THE HORSES WERE! THAT MIGHT BE ABLE TO TELL US HOW FAR YOU WENT!"
The man hesitated. "Then you… believe me? When I say I don't remember…?"
"OF COURSE!"
"Seriously?!" Undyne snarled. "You actually believe this crap?!"
"HE HAS NO REASON TO LIE! AND IF IT WERE NOT TRUE, HE WOULD NOT USE THE SAME EXCUSE AS THE OTHER CRIMINALS! THAT JUST WOULDN'T MAKE SENSE!"
This gave Undyne pause. She seemed to consider the skeleton's words, then let out a frustrated noise, turned sharply on her heels, and stormed into the station.
After a moment of silence, Papyrus clapped his gloved hands together. "WELL, AT LEAST SHE'S NO LONGER ABOUT TO DO A VIOLENCE!"
That seemed to snap the other officers, the human ones, out of whatever reverie the fish-lady's rage had put them into. A couple of them approached the cart and led the still shaking prisoner down, and the third turned on his walkie-talkie, barking orders into it.
"Make sure we get the number of the cart the perp was disembarking earlier today! We might be able to get some information from the driver, or track where the cart went!"
Once an affirmative had been sent via radio, the man turned to Toriel and gave her a faint smile. "Don't worry, Your Majesty. We'll let you know if we find any leads – we will find your kid."
She nodded, apparently not trusting herself to speak, and the man turned and walked inside the building, leaving the small group of worried monsters lingering outside.
Hovering high over the monsters' heads, Holly suppressed a shiver and turned on her communicator.
"Foaly, did you get all that?"
"Loud and clear."
The elf sighed in relief, eyeing the people below as they slowly began to disperse. She kept a particularly close eye on the flower – those red-thorned vines were still out, and the little monster's face still sported a very ugly, very angry expression.
And I thought the Frond-damned thing was intimidating before.
"Do you think you could track the cart this guy was riding in?"
"Yeah, no problem." A keyboard began clicking on the other end of the line, and the centaur added grudgingly, "Smart idea, to track the cart. Gotta give the skeleton that much, at least."
Holly snorted. She hadn't been surprised one bit by the tall skeleton's smarts – after all, this was the same monster that had nearly beat Myles at chess despite having never played the game before.
Another minute or so passed in silence, aside from Foaly's keyboard in the background, before the centaur broke radio silence.
"Alright, I think I found the cart – I scanned some of the patrol's camera feeds for it. Public cart number 223, makes runs through the business district and down to the docks. That can narrow down the search area, at least, but there's a bunch of businesses and warehouses and abandoned buildings in the area."
"Good." Holly's eyes narrowed in the direction of the docks. "We'd better find the kid fast."
The last thing we want is for whoever's behind all this to have their hands on them for too long. I can think of a few things a fairy criminal might want with the Monster Ambassador, and none of them are pretty.
The trip to unconsciousness to being awake once more was a jarring one, with the very first sensations Frisk was aware of being a weak, aching pain running throughout their entire body, the very, very uncomfortable feeling of hard, slightly chilly concrete underneath them, and of course, Chara's worried voice in the back of their head.
*Frisk! Damn it, wake up!
Frisk groaned weakly. Their ghostly partner's voice was making their head pound like someone was taking a hammer to it.
*Oh my God, finally! Took you long enough! Get up, get up!
Wincing, Frisk took careful note of their body's various aches and pains (nothing too severe, so far as they could tell – there certainly weren't any bleeding wounds, so far as they could tell. They did, however, discover that their arms were tied behind their back, and their legs bound together), and then gingerly tried to squirm upright. It took a few tries – trying to sit up without their hands, they found, was incredibly difficult, and the wave of dizziness that hit them the first time they tried didn't help matters any – but they finally managed to sit up, and prop themselves up against the wall.
They were in a very small room – it couldn't have been much larger than a closet, at most – with a concrete floor and walls, a few dim, flickering lights in the ceiling, and a single plain door without even a window to see through. There was no furniture, not even a blanket or anything, and dust covered the floor, save for a few blank square patches on the floor that suggested that something large and box-shaped had recently been moved.
Chara? What… ugh. Frisk grimaced again as another bout of dizziness interrupted their train of thought. What happened? I remember the building exploding, then…
*Someone nabbed you while Mom was busy saving people from the fire.
Chara sounded furious, the worry in their voice now gone. Honestly, they didn't blame the ghost one bit – they'd be angry too if their brain was working at a hundred percent.
Did you see who…?
*Yeah, but it won't do us any good. We got handed off to someone else partway here, and the guy who snatched us to begin with looked pretty out of it. Glazed eyes, emotionless face, the works.
Damn. Frisk shook their head, trying to clear it. You think a… a fairy got to him? Mind-controlled him?
*I mean, I wouldn't exactly be surprised.
Something in the ghost's tone, however, suggested that they were skeptical about that possibility.
Chara?
*Well, if he did get mind-controlled or hypnotized or something, then why kidnap you? They've been trying to kill you up until now.
That was an unfortunately good point. Why would someone who had been gunning for their life up until now suddenly change their tune? Frisk ran a few ideas through their head, but because they were still pretty discombobulated, they couldn't quite make any of those ideas work. It was like trying to jam a triangle-shaped puzzle piece into a circular hole.
… Where are we? Do you know…?
*Warehouse, I think. We're not quite at the docks, but we're closer to them than the business district. I don't know the address, though, so if we escape the building, we'll get lost pretty damn quick.
So it's best to… ugh, my head…
*Probably best to stay put for now, yeah.
Great. Frisk let their head fall back to rest heavily against the wall. What about guards…? Are there guards?
*Yup. One outside, one left sometime since you woke up, I heard his footsteps.
The ghost paused, then continued carefully.
*There was a third guy here earlier, who told them to come let him know when you're awake. I think that's who the guard went to find.
Great, Frisk repeated numbly. They closed their eyes. So they want to interrogate me.
*Probably.
Any idea why?
Before Chara could answer, there were footsteps outside. Frisk lifted their head, squinting at the door, as two sets of feet stopped outside the door. There was a brief murmuring of conversation, too soft to make out the words, and then a jingling of keys.
The man that stepped through the door after it was unlocked looked, honestly, like he was some average guy you might walk past on the street. Average build, nondescript clothes consisting of a plain long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and sneakers, short-cropped brown hair, brown eyes. His skin was considerably more ruddy than average, though, and his face looked more like it belonged a picture Frisk had seen once online of a native American than an Irishman – high cheekbones, square-ish jaw, slightly slanted eyes.
And something about the man's expression immediately put them on guard. It wasn't a downright hostile look, exactly, but the man's eyes were sharp with obvious dislike, and his face carefully, purposefully subdued.
"I see you're awake, Ambassador," the man said, and Frisk noted distantly that his accent was considerably more subtle than some Irish accents that they'd encountered. "Good. I have some questions for you."
I don't know why, but I really, REALLY loved writing Flowey and Undyne freaking out at that poor kidnapper. I was also tempted to include a more humorous freak-out on the fairies' behalf, but that would've ruined the more serious tone of this chapter, so… (shrugs)
And, uh, out of curiosity (that in no way has anything to do with the fact that the mesmerizer's identity will be revealed soon, nope, not at all), who do people think is behind the assassins and now, presumably, Frisk's kidnapping? Do you think they're a fairy criminal? What do you think their motivations are? I'd like to see what you guys think! :3
And now for today's worldbuilding, once again inspired by one of MemorySteel's questions: "What did the European mages think of normal humans, and vice-versa?"
Now, as for the whole "what did European mages think of normal humans and vice-versa" thing... European mages, before the witch hunts during the Dark Ages, tended to see other humans as anything from unfortunate to foolish to way, WAY beneath them - their magic gave them great power, and as such tended to make their lives a bit easier and, in the process, often gave them more than a little bit of an ego boost. During the Dark Ages, on the other hand... they unlearned that REALLY quickly and began to fear normal people instead. The normies outnumbered them by a LOT, and it's unfortunately just a part of human nature to shun things that are too different, and sometimes even lash out at them. As a result, though some still retained those egos of old, most European mages just plain old feared their non-magical neighbors – or, rather, what their neighbors might do to them if they found out they were mages.
Normal European humans, on the other hand, mostly feared their mages. That fear was originally more of a fear of upsetting them than anything else - mages were beyond what a normal human could achieve, and some could do things to people when upset that made their skins crawl, so as a general rule of thumb people were politely encouraged to stay the hell away from them, though not disrespect them. After a while, though, this fear turned from "don't upset them, they'll smite you" to "smite them before they smite us!" Or, in other words, to a philosophy we Undertale fans have all heard at some point or another... "Kill or be killed." They began to hunt down mages because they feared that eventually, the mages would do the same to them.
In modern day society, normal humans have forgotten about magic, for the most part, believing it was never actually real until the monsters surfaced. If they knew about human mages now, they'd treat them considerably better than their ancestors. The mages, on the other hand, are still holding onto their fear of normies, and refuse to show themselves out of fear that the witch hunts might start again... though they've been becoming more optimistic, since the monsters, a clearly magical race, surfaced, and have been treated fairly well in many countries.
