Chapter Sixteen
A fire crackled gently, its aura a pool of wavering orange light. Snow fell a few tiny specks at a time. Half-melted ice was piled around their campsite. There had been no proper dinner, merely a few snacks passed around. His slippers sat close to the flames, his feet in open air, and three of them sat huddled together for warmth. Smoke rose into the tree branches, a thin column of gray. They all stared into the dancing flames, hardly moving.
It was quiet. None of them had spoken a word since sundown. Mizera hadn't any nonsense to spew. Daezl didn't complain, not even when one of their tents fell apart, leaving them with only one to squeeze into. Juni was curled up beside Oro, not quite awake but not quite dozing. The larger monster sat with tail wrapped around her, and Sans sat across from Captain Killjoy, neither looking up to meet the other's gaze.
Until at last, he broke the silence: "It's later."
"What?"
"You said you'd explain everything later," said Sans, crossing his legs to lean forward. "It's later."
Those ice-blue eyes narrowed at him a moment before turning away. "Right when you guys came up here, what happened? How'd the humans react?"
"They were uh, pretty shocked at first. There was this town that wasn't too far away. Nobody was out when we showed up, but we found a little coffee shop that was open." He leaned back, propping himself with arms behind his ribs. Staring up at the clouds, he said, "Papyrus got all excited and ran in. People freaked out yellin' about how the stories were true, the mountain was haunted and we'd come to eat their souls or something."
"Yeah. Guess that makes sense."
He looked at him. "How?"
Daezl picked up a stick and poked at the firewood. "No one really knows the whole story. Of the war, I mean. Nobody knows how it started. Well, we've got a theory. Y'see, the Old Magic-"
"The Old Magic was a lot different," Mizera cut in, a trickling wonder in her otherwise subdued voice. "But since things weren't recorded so well back then, it's unclear just how different. We dunno how or why magic changed. We don't know the who or when either! But we think that maybe… some monsters kept traces of the Old Magic in their souls. Passed it on through their bloodlines. And that that's what started the war."
"Old Magic was supposedly much more powerful than what we have today," said Juni, staring at the ring on her finger. "So the theory is the humans saw what these few monsters were still capable of, and attacked monsterkind out of fear."
"Yeah, the Underground's a lot bigger than most people think at first," said Oro. "And whether they just wanted to or they had to go into hiding, those people with the different magic set up a secret place for themselves."
Silence as they waited for him to put two and two together. "Bloodrune."
"Yep! Not sure why they went with such a creepy name, though. Maybe some kinda blood spell we don't know about."
Daezl continued as he twisted the stick around in the heart of the fire, "but not everyone wanted to be completely isolated. Like the royal scientist."
"Alphys?" he asked somewhat jokingly.
"No, idiot. Wingding Gaster; you and Papyrus' dad." He paused for a moment to reflect as Sans took this in. "Or, creator? Summoner? Ah whatever."
"He was trying to make an artificial SOUL with some magic from this realm called the Void, but he accidentally made you instead! You're a Void Baby!"
"Again, we are not truly certain of what we are as a group. We were all quite young when you were born. So we're not sure exactly if fate was at work and it was always meant to be, or if you somehow joined us when you came into the world," Juni said.
In the distance, a tree branch hit the ice.
"So, to answer the question of: what is this?" said Oro.
Miz finished, "it just… is."
Daezl pulled the stick from the fire and waved its flaming tip about. "We lived there. Crazy stuff happened. Then some really crazy stuff happened and we had to make alternative plans. When we stopped her the first time, Siphas tried to drag us all into her dimension with her. Reached out to us with her magic. When the portal snapped shut, some part of her powers stayed with us. You were farther from it than we were, so you escaped."
"And since she lost her grip on us at the last minute, we got flung into a different world! And it was really fun to explore."
"Sub-realms connected to this one. So we could sometimes have just enough connection to Earth that we could steal a few books or do a little eavesdropping."
"Or pet baby seals!"
Daezl shot a glare in her direction. "Funny thing though: we never could keep tabs on you for very long. It was like the Underground specifically was almost completely out of bounds to us."
He sat up again. "So why can't I remember any of this?"
"Right. Yeah," said Daezl, shaking his head. "So, the first thing we wanted to do when we were safe, was close off Bloodrune so she couldn't get through that way again. But as long as her magic was active in your soul, we couldn't seal it completely. She still had some tiny bit of hold."
"Don't ask how we did it," Oro said. "I still don't understand it."
"But with the magic of the other realms," Juni said. "We couldn't remove it, but we could lock it away. To do that though, we had to block your memories. As long as you knew of all this, as long as you were aware of the paranormal, Siphas, and her magic… Not only would her influence be just too strong to break, but you would keep working to reopen that bridge to rescue us."
Wood clattered on wood as Daezl's stick joined the fire. "And considering how we barely stopped her the first time, that was just too dangerous. So we stayed in the worlds we could travel to, waited, planned- well, I did most of the planning. Until we could come back and get rid of her once and for all. We actually weren't supposed to come back yet-"
Air was in short supply as he slowed and turned into a new aisle. A phantom electricity surged through his being while Sans grabbed a few cans to add to his cart. Footsteps thudded against the floor behind him. He forced a deep breath. He turned yet again, silently daring them to follow.
Exhilaration. That was the word to describe this feeling, and something about it was oddly familiar.
Painfully familiar.
O
It resembled the sensation of a limb regaining feeling, after it'd been "asleep" for a while. While it was a rare occurrence for monsters of his kind, it was possible, and it was the best way to describe the experience. Such a fact brought a new spin to the now-old question: Was this foreign yet familiar energy something he had always possessed? Why else would its source be the very culmination of his being? Why, if that was true, was he unaware of it until now? Surely something would have triggered it before?
O
"-But we found out she was gaining power here again. It doesn't make any sense, though. Sure, she's not in Bloodrune, but my idea seemed like it was keeping things under control everywhere else too. And you don't remember-"
O
A yellow glow. A laugh. Someone else's laugh.
O
The ethereal force twisted and churned with an energy he found familiar, foreign, and intoxicating all at once.
O
The force reminded him of its presence, and of the day's events.
Go away and lemme get back to my life, will ya?
Even as he gave the order, he knew it wasn't what he wanted. But if that was the case… What did he want?
***Four monsters ** One an orange canine ** One a feathered raccoon **** Two of flesh and stone** Their names-
Their names…
What were their names?
O
"None of that matters, I guess. She can't take over without us and- hey, are you liste-"
O
He recalled a pair of monsters, one slender, one bulky. Their fur was black, with the faintest hint of blue here and there. Pale rocks grew from their bones at a few points, protruding comfortably from their skin. Sky blue eyes, icy blue eyes, and long, thin tails. He recalled a dull orange canine with dark cream hands, feet, and underside of her curled tail. A lean form and a dark brown gaze. He recalled a raccoon monster, with hints of avian traits. Red and white fur, feathers worked seamlessly into the thick pelt. Wings which didn't seem capable of flight. He saw a delicate, narrow muzzle and ruby red eyes. Sans knew each and every detail.
And for a fraction of an instant, he remembered who they were.
O
A phantom presence pulsed once at the core of his soul, like a dying animal vying for its last breath. All went still. All of a sudden, he didn't care. Not enough to try and solve the mystery. It was as though a sedative had taken hold of his mind; the matter didn't concern him anymore, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep.
A tiny, broken shard of thought flashed in and out of his consciousness: someone didn't like that, and that someone wasn't him.
O
He stood abruptly, eye sockets dark, and trudged into the woods, ignoring their questioning voices, ignoring their concern. He heard footsteps behind and sped up.
Without thinking, he teleported.