Chapter 14: Love's Triumph
Rebecca and Hannah stood beside Asgore as he spoke with the town leaders before him. "The mountain will continue to be our home, but we do ask for protection against those that wish our families harm," he said.
"It shall be granted," said the town leader chosen to speak. "We met and all agreed unanimously that you and your people are welcome among us. You saved many of our children and loved ones from those evil mages that arrived a few months ago. We never would have found out their real agenda had you not informed us of their deeds."
"We simply wanted you to see with your own eyes what they were really doing," Hannah said, her voice calm.
Rebecca nodded. "Kidnapping children and planning to kill them just to absorb their souls," she said, looking disgusted. "I assure you, many of us nearly lost our lunches when we learned what those evil mages were doing."
"They were giving good mages like yourselves a bad name," said a female leader. "And trying to stain the reputation of the...people on the mountain."
Asgore smiled. "You can say it," he said gently. "My race is of monsters after all."
"Well, yes," the lady said a bit hesitantly. "But...it sounds a bit...derogatory. No offense."
"None taken," he responded kindly. "But it is alright. We know we are monsters and we know when we are being spoken of unkindly or in a bad light."
The leaders nodded. "And the children trust you wholeheartedly," another leader said. "My child looks forward to learning how to read from Miss Toriel as he was struggling to do so in school. He now looks forward to her tutoring lessons."
"And my child loves the baking lessons with Miss Muffet," said a fourth leader. "She used to be afraid of spiders, but she says Miss Muffet has taught her how to identify good spiders and to respect the dangerous ones by giving them plenty of space."
The two good mages smiled. "The children do seem rather eager to learn from our family," Hannah said. "Even the most skeptical or ones that say they are not interested warm up to the lesson after a bit."
"Because they are all treated fairly and not singled out," Rebecca said. "Our family believes to treat everyone equally."
"And it's because of your open-mindedness that my son graduated school with honors and got into the college he was wanting to go to," said another female leader with a smile.
"And that my daughter found that she had a gift for healing magic," said the final male leader. "She was so scared to show us, but your family who has the same magic helped her by encouraging her gift and helping her to tell me and my wife. We had been worried that the magic had died out when it skipped me, but were happy that she had it. She is now volunteering at the hospital and wants to study more to be a doctor."
Asgore smiled. "All the children coming to learn from us have been a blessing," he said. "And I wish to extend the invitation that if any of you or the others would like to also come and learn, you are more than welcome too."
"You don't think we're a bit too old?" The first lady leader asked.
"You're never too old to learn," Hannah said. "I'm still learning magic from my father. He's been teaching me water magic lately."
"And I've been learning more fire magic from Grillby, who basically became a second father to me," Rebecca said.
"If two mages well versed in magic can learn more, then anyone can learn," Asgore said, smiling.
The rest of the meeting went well and the three headed back home. Hannah smiled. "I never dreamed we'd have come this far in a year," she admitted.
"And today makes the one-year anniversary of the barrier being broken," Rebecca said.
"It has gone by fast," Asgore said softly.
After settling in their new homes in the forest, some fellow good mages worked to speak to the towns surrounding their villages to tell them about the monsters and how they were good people, having helped to defeat the evil mages, who had kidnapped a monster child and hurt him horribly.
The townspeople, despite being wary of monsters, were horrified to hear of a child being hurt, especially when they heard exactly what the evil mages had done. Instead of turning the people against the monsters, it made them turn against the evil mages, so when more evil mages came to try and destroy the monsters and the mountain, the townspeople all stood against them, fighting back and giving the monsters and the good mages a chance. Uniting together, they had defeated the evil mages for good and the townspeople formed laws against discrimination of both humans and monsters. Even bullying was severely frowned upon and the parents taught their children to accept the monsters.
There were a few times when someone would discriminate against the monsters and a few bullying incidents had occurred, but were taken care of immediately while Rebecca and Hannah had been asked to show the bully children and the haughty discriminators the harsher side of their magic. The two had reluctantly agreed on the condition they would not use their magic to hit the wrongdoers, but they hadn't had to worry. The light show they had put on with the thunder and lightning and the ground shaking had been enough to scare the wrongdoers into never bullying or discriminating again.
They arrived at the archway at the beginning of the forest, the gates opened by the sentries who stood guard. "All was quiet," said one of them. "Though we did have some curious children come up to us. We watched over them until their parents arrived."
"The parents apologized to us, but we told them we didn't mind the little ones coming up to talk to us," said the other.
Asgore smiled. "Good," he said. "I'm sure the children were just curious about knights since they hear about them in stories but probably hadn't seen one in real life before."
"One girl actually asked if girls could be knights and we told her about Undyne," the first guard said. "She was really happy to hear that."
Rebecca chuckled in amusement. "Well, if Undyne can be, then why not?" She asked.
The three moved on to their homes. "Daddy!" A cry sounded out and was echoed as the royal children ran to their father, who smiled and opened his arms to them all, his children surrounding him and hugging him happily.
Hannah saw her father and went up to him, hugging him. "How did the meeting go, sweetie?" He asked.
"It went well," she said. "The leaders agreed to grant us the protection."
Happy squeals filled the air as Ida and Hope saw Rebecca and both stood up and walked towards their mother, whose jaw dropped in surprise before she smiled, kneeling down and welcoming her two daughters in her arms. "Oh, my angels. Mommy is so proud of you two," she said.
Papyrus beamed. "They've been practicing since you left," he said, coming up to her.
Rebecca hugged and kissed him. "This was a pleasant surprise," she said.
Muffet and Grillby smiled. "Heads up, Rebecca," the latter said.
Sensing someone coming, the mage moved fast and jumped up, catching Harmony and Sky in her arms. The two babies giggled happily as their aunt caught them and tickled their sides as she floated down to the ground. "Sneaky," she said to them. "I wouldn't have suspected you two there if your father hadn't said something."
Muffet giggled as she accepted her daughters from the mage. "They almost caught you," she said.
"True," Rebecca said, smiling.
Carmen looked at her dad. "Dad, do you think we can do a pizza party tonight?" She asked. "Uncle Grillby got a whole bunch of stuff for making pizzas."
Toriel was about to protest, but then stopped herself. "You know, you three did get back from a successful meeting and it has been a good week," she said. "Oh, why not? I suppose it wouldn't hurt to enjoy some pizza."
"I do have veggies for it too," he said, knowing some of them liked vegetables on their pizzas.
"Pizza!" Snow Mound cheered happily with some of the others.
Everyone eagerly headed for Grillby's restaurant and Hannah smiled, looking at Rebecca, who also smiled. "Never would have guessed that it would come to this, huh?" The former asked.
"No," the dark-haired mage said. "But I wouldn't trade any of it for anything."
"Same here," said her friend before she headed into the restaurant, but Rebecca hung back a little, turning to look at the memorial of her teachers that had been erected, along with the memorial of Hannah's birth father. While the crystal memorial was still in the Underground, a stone memorial was built for the three as well. She took a deep breath.
"I know I'm still not there yet, but I will continue to strive to be the master mage you three saw I can be," she promised. "But until then, I will continue working to make sure monsters and humans live in harmony and heal the deep wounds left behind by hatred."
With that, she headed inside, glad that love had triumphed at last to win the war. Love had conquered the hate they faced and granted them all the best reward of all: a family and freedom.
And that concludes "A Final Triumph Of Love". :) Thank you everyone who read, reviewed, and followed this story. :)
Please leave a review, but no flames!
GoldGuardian2418