Artemis had been having curious flashes of deja vu for the entire evening.
The first instance had been that rather unfortunate conversation with Mr. Yew. Even as he'd talked circles around the man, he'd felt as if he'd done it before.
The second instance had been the following conversation with the monster ambassador. Again, word for word, he'd felt as if he was repeating an entire conversation.
The third instance, his conversation with the officer checking on the rose spiral.
And the fourth instance, his brief banter with Holly, and her informing him of the dangerous floral monster encountered in the Underground.
He had, of course, had feelings of deja vu before. When one often danced metaphorical circles around the idiots of the world, doing so once again tended to become monotonous.
But this felt different somehow.
Standing at a distance as he watched Holly terrorizing the more dim-witted of the technicians setting up their equipment, Artemis frowned, analyzing his memories and the day's events. So far as he could tell, nothing had occurred that was out of the ordinary… save for the monsters and the odd fluctuation of the magical hotspot, of course.
So why did it feel as if he was missing crucial information? As if he'd missed something?
His thought process was interrupted by a soft voice behind him. "Artemis?"
The Irishman turned his head to find Myles and Beckett standing behind him – Myles more or less unmoving, Beckett shuffling his feet nervously, and both sparing brief, serious glances towards the fairies in their garden.
"What's going on?" The blonde twin asked. "I haven't seen so many fairies here in ages."
Artemis sighed, then turned fully around to face his younger brothers, bending down so he was closer to their eye level. "They've found an unusual magical fluctuation here."
At the sight of the boys' alarmed expressions, (of course they would be alarmed – after all, they knew that something had happened here almost eight years ago, even if their memories of the actual events were hazy) he was quick to reassure them. "There's no need for alarm. The fluctuation simply appeared without warning, and as it matches an unknown magical signature recently discovered in the Underground, they wish to investigate it, and make certain it will not harm anybody on the grounds."
This seemed to calm them down somewhat, and Artemis continued, "I don't suppose there were any monsters near this location during the gala? The fairies' patrols should have spotted them if there were, but things have been slipped past them before."
"Nope." Beckett turned his head, owl-like, to watch a passing technician, who gave the human youths a nervous look. "The only person that's been near here other than us was Frisk."
Ah, yes. Even if they were not a monster themselves, the ambassador had spent close to two years with constant exposure to monster magic – magic that was several times stronger than that of the People, and therefore more likely to influence an already delicate magical field. That could very well explain the sudden change, even if it was a tad unlikely…
He sincerely doubted that even that sort of magical residue could cause this large a change, however, so perhaps not.
Myles' eyes narrowed thoughtfully, drifting to rest on the patch of ground at the exact center of flower spiral.
"Where precisely is this fluctuation?"
"Center of the spiral." The boys jumped as Holly appeared seemingly out of nowhere, frowning without any real ire at the two children. "Right where your little ambassador friend started looking more than a little sick, at least according to the officers on patrol." One of her brows crept up. "I don't suppose you know what happened to them?"
They shook their heads in unison.
"They just said that they were feeling sick all of a sudden," Beckett mumbled. "Queasy, wobbly knees, looked kinda pale…"
The fairy sighed in exasperation but turned her attention to the little computer embedded in the wrist of her Section Eight suit. "Great. Recon's not going to be happy about this, but at least they'll be across the ocean from the Underground..."
Noticing the concern on the young Fowls' faces, she sighed. "Look, they're probably fine, okay? I'm just requesting a couple of small teams to keep an eye on them until we know for sure."
Beckett sighed in relief, and Myles looked considerably less tense. Artemis raised a curious eyebrow at their reactions.
"You seem remarkably… concerned for a child you barely know."
Myles flushed in embarrassment, but his twin merely shrugged.
"They're nice," he pointed out. "They didn't stick around to listen to Juliet telling embarrassing stories about us, and they helped us meet a bunch of cool monsters."
"They're also an intriguing subject for psycho-analysis," Myles added quickly. "Even though they seem to have no professional training, they're fairly adept at hiding their emotions if need be – though, obviously, not adept enough to hide them from me."
Holly snorted. "Real humble, Mud Boy Jr.," she muttered. "Real humble."
"It's hardly humility if it's true, Captain. There's also the matter of their paranoia – whenever an unfamiliar human drew near a monster within their line of sight, they grew visibly tense, and they were even more so when unable to see any of the monsters."
The boy paused, then hummed thoughtfully. "I didn't think of this before, but why would the Ambassador be so concerned for the monsters when they were the closest thing to armed of any of the guests? If anything, it's the humans that should have reason to be alarmed in the event of an attack, not the monsters."
There was a moment of silence.
"That's true," Holly admitted grudgingly. "With all that magic they have, you'd think that nothing could hurt them, but..."
She didn't need to complete her thought, even though it was guaranteed to be right on the tip of her tongue.
What secrets did the monsters have for the Ambassador to be so frightened for them?
Time seemed to be slowing down to a sluggish crawl from the very first moment that Frisk, Toriel, and the Drakes had sat down at the table across from the human volunteers and started talking.
It was thanks to their nervousness, they knew. Even though they'd already made what preparations they needed to – called the police and told them they'd had an anonymous tip about a gunman posted outside the restaurant, figured out when Chara would take over and what to actually do when confronted with the gun – they couldn't help but feel a little paranoid now that they knew what was waiting for them outside.
*Calm down, already. This isn't the first time we've done this.
True. They had done something like this before in a previous timeline – in several previous timelines, actually – and it had worked every time, more or less.
But that didn't stop them from feeling nervous. There were so many ways this could go wrong – once they started changing the timelines, people because unpredictable. The man could shoot one of the monsters by accident, or he could panic and run, only to come back with backup later.
They needed to get this right.
*We'll be fine. Stop being such a scaredy-cat, geeze.
Like you're not nervous, too.
*Of course not!
…...
*… Okay, maybe a little, but still, we'll be fine.
Eventually, the meeting wound down. Mr. Winnick offered a handshake to Snowdrake's dad, the two humans left, the monsters spoke briefly, expressing their relief…
Then they were getting up and moving towards the door.
Okay. Ready?
*Ready!
They reached out to grab the door handle, hoping the slight trembling they could see in their own fingers hadn't been noticed.
Now!
Chara wrenched control away from them as the door was pulled open, and quickly half-skipped to one side, in front of the still-chattering Snowdrake, as the gun fired.
The crack cut off all conversation, replacing them with familiar cries of shock and terror, and a grunt of pain that slipped out as the bullet hit, not its intended target of the middle of their chest, but several inches to the left and up, just below their collarbone.
Go, go, go!
With a yell, Chara lunged forward, grappling for the gun and managing to twist it in the man's grip so that the next shot went careening up and over peoples' heads.
"Police!" They yelled. "Over here! Here!"
The meager crowds were panicking, men and women and children rushing in every direction in a panic, but several people pushed against the crowd, running for them instead of away. The first undercover cop hit the assassin at a dead run, tackling the blank-eyed man into the ground, and the others followed, quickly piling on top of him. The man's hand didn't so much as twitch, keeping a death grip on the gun until Chara snarled and wrenched his fingers open, forcing him to drop it. They kicked the gun away quickly, gasping for breath, and one of the officers that hadn't dog-piled the culprit quickly snatched the weapon up, pointing it at the man's head.
There was a moment of silence, as people seemed to catch their bearings. Wheezing a little, Chara stumbled a few steps backward, glaring at the would-be killer.
He didn't so much as blink, his face entirely, creepily blank. It hadn't changed once during the entire confrontation.
"Frisk!"
Large, furry hands grabbed ahold of them, scooping them up off the ground, and Chara quickly pulled back, pushing Frisk back into control. The ambassador yelped, the pain from their wound, which had felt like nothing but a numb ache to them while their ghostly ally was in control, suddenly screaming in agony at the sudden movement.
"Oh stars, you're injured!"
Frisk managed a trembling smile up at Toriel's horrified expression, aiming for reassuring and probably failing. "It's not as bad as it looks?" They offered weakly.
"You'll need to get them to a hospital, 'mam," one of the officers grunted. The police had dragged the assassin to his feet, cuffing his hands behind his back, and some of them were already leading him to an inconspicuous looking horse-drawn cart waiting a little ways away. "We've already called an ambulance. You'll need to get that bullet out before you use any of that healing food of yours – we don't want it to get stuck in there."
He turned to Frisk. "You know, kid, you could have just asked us to stick closer to the door."
The ambassador shook their head, wincing as a bout of dizziness hit them. "I didn't know who the assassin was," they lied, voice shaking, "or where he was gonna be. Just that he'd be there..."
The distant sound of a siren reached them, and they felt more than heard Toriel sigh in relief.
"Stay awake, my child," she ordered. "Stay awake, you hear me?"
Frisk nodded. They weren't feeling particularly tired – they hadn't lost quite enough blood for that yet – but they weren't about to argue with a terrified mother, especially not their own.
They waited in tense silence as Toriel used her own wide sleeves to attempt to staunch the blood flow from the bullet hole.
*...See? Everything turned out fine.
They almost smiled at that. Only Chara could consider going to the emergency room fine.
But all things considered…
Yeah. I guess it did...
In case people are wondering, Myles and Beckett don't really remember what happened with the Berserker Gate during the Crash, or know that Artemis technically died there because they were both only three or four at the time, and it's been almost a decade. Even a genius three-year-old isn't going to remember something that long ago, especially if he's been reassured by someone he trusts that whatever happened isn't going to happen again, and Mr. and Mrs. Fowl were likely to want to protect them from the knowledge that the older brother they look up to died on their favorite place on the grounds.
They are aware that what happened there was something the fairies were very concerned about, though, which is why they were nervous about the magical changes at the rose spiral - they know that whatever happened was bad, and that nobody will want it repeating itself.