Lawrence looked to the soldiers beside him as the plane approached its target. It was eerily quiet inside, since the plane's engines had been shut off to prevent suspicion, and the only sound was the air rushing past outside. A buzzer sounded and a green light lit up. The group stood up and faced the opening bay door of the aircraft. A second buzzer sounded, and the team took a running start, leaping out of the plane. The soldiers kept close formation as they rapidly fell from the sky. Lawrence looked at the dim screen of the radar monitor on his forearm, using it to help guide him down to the landing zone. The sun had yet to fully rise, and he couldn't risk landing even a foot off target.

Just over 1,000 feet above the ground, Lawrence jerked the string, and a dark black and blue parachute opened above him. He kept a tight circle as he descended towards the small clearing in the trees. He hit the ground and took a few steps forward to allow the chute to settle behind him. Quickly he gathered it up and tucked it away, before cocking his assault rifle, making for the rendezvous. Gunfire and artillery shells could be heard in the distance.

Just four days prior the monsters had launched their invasion, just as Asriel had promised. To prevent resistance, the Niacan military gave fiercer resistance than the monsters anticipated, and the invading forces' progress had been slow at first. Still, the Niacan military had allowed for them to push them back, and Falkirk fell by nightfall. For four days the monsters had pushed the Niacan military back. Asriel continued to advise of what Asgore's next moves would be, and he had not failed so far.

Now, the counter-invasion was underway. Lawrence was a member of the 31st airborne division in the military, part of an elite paratrooper squadron. He recalled from earlier the briefing by General Holmes himself.

"Prince Asriel's really come through. The monsters had made significant progress, but to maintain their speed they've left a lot of the heavier machinery has been left behind, and their supply routes have been stretched significantly. There are several main roads they've been using to transport supplies to the front. Your mission will be to parachute in behind enemy lines, secure those roads, and hold them against attack as reinforcements arrive. We know that Asgore won't be expecting it, so there's a high probability of this working. Gentlemen, we have one shot at this. Make it count."

Lawrence stopped running as he spotted movement, seeing two other soldiers from his unit approaching. From the right, a few more were visible. In moments, all members in the unit were present right next to the dirt road. The captain of the unit looked to each of them in turn before he spoke.

"Seventeen...eighteen. Alright, this is the place. The next patrol should be coming by in exactly ten minutes from now. Get to your positions alongside the road, but wait until the convoy has nearly passed before we attack. If we can get them from behind, we stand a better chance."

Immediately the soldiers once again split up, moving to their pre-calculated vantage points by the road. Lawrence scrambled up a short tree, using the branches to hide himself. After finding a safe perch, he could only sit and wait, staring up the road. Time seemed to crawl, and every crack of a gun, or low rumble of an explosion made his finger twitch. Soon, a distant sound of wheels on dirt could be heard, and the rumbling engines that accompanied them. The convoy came into view, right on time. He glanced up, just spotting one of the soldiers in a tree across from him readying something. Lawrence fished a grenade out of his backpack, and slipped his finger into the loop of the pin. He glanced at the grenade. It wasn't an ordinary explosive.

Ever since the first war between humans and monsters, the Niacan government had shifted magic research towards a more militaristic focus. Just half a year prior to Asgore's invasion, there was finally a breakthrough. The top minds in the nation managed to integrate conventional explosives with a magical energy absorption mechanism, allowing the creation of a grenade that was extremely powerful, yet with a low blast radius. Lawrence had never seen it in action, but he knew from other reports that it worked. Most of the time at least.

Just as the convoy was about through, he pulled the pin and lobbed it in front of one of the trucks. One of the monsters walking beside the truck saw the grenade land in front of them and instantly yelled.

"GRENADE! GET DO-" He was cut off as the grenade exploded, turning four of the soldiers to dust instantly. Immediately after two more explosions followed from elsewhere in the convoy as other paratroopers threw their own grenades. The force of the explosions shoved one of the transport trucks off the road, overturning it. Yet, the explosions were never wider than the road itself, and the explosions emitted a bright blue glow from them.

Immediately the other paratroopers opened fire on the convoy. At first they seemed to be making headway, as the monsters were seemingly being overwhelmed. Then he spotted a monster climb onto the back of a truck, behind a mounted gun. Dust was scattered from the seat as the soldier took the controls. The soldier aimed it for the tree across from Lawrence, and he could only watch as blasts of magic shot from the turret, exploding against the tree. Thinking fast, Lawrence fired a quick shot at the turret before jumping down from his perch, just before a wave of magic slammed into the tree, shattering it instantly.

Evidently, he must've missed - the magic gun kept firing. He quickly ducked down, trying to avoid the new onslaught from the turret. Suddenly, the fire stopped, and in the respite of the fire he aimed his rifle at the gun, only to see that one of the other paratroopers had already dusted the monster from one of the last vantage points still standing. With the turret out of the way, the rest of the monsters saw that they had little hope, and began to flee into the woods. The paratroopers didn't bother shooting at the monsters trying to escape - there was no need to waste their limited ammunition. After doing a final check of the area, the captain looked at the turret. He hopped into the seat and turned it towards one of the remaining trucks, trying to fire it. Yet, nothing happened. Standing up, he shrugged.

"Must be built in such a way that only a monster using magic can operate it. Might be useful if we can find a way to make it so we can use it too. Private Clarkson?" One of the paratroopers from nearby glanced up.

"You're good with mechanical stuff, yeah? Try to see if you can make this thing work for us."

The soldier sprinted over immediately, and looked it over. "I'll see what I can do, sir."

Lawrence wiped a drop of sweat from his forehead. Despite the small setback, this road was safely back in Niacan hands. He could only hope the other divisions had succeeded as well.

Asgore walked into the war room, where Undyne waited anxiously for him. He had gotten word that something had gone wrong with the invasion earlier that morning, and now he was determined to get to the bottom of it.

"Talk to me Captain, what happened?"

Undyne spoke immediately. "Remember how we encountered stronger resistance than we anticipated when we launched the invasion?"

Asgore nodded. "I recall it. What about it?"

Undyne looked grim. "Well after the initial strike, resistance dropped back and we were able to sweep through the nation, as you said we'd be able to do. However, it seems we've been played like a fiddle."

Asgore's eyes narrowed. "...How so?"

Undyne pointed to a map. "These three supply routes have been completely overrun, as reported by some attacked convoys. We've lost contact with two others as well. The remaining ones have halted convoy movement and are on high alert, but this represents a significant reduction in our logistics capability."

Asgore was shocked. "How the hell did that happen?!"

Undyne tried to explain. "Extremely well coordinated strikes. Niaca has attacked convoys moving along the roads, and have blocked and fortified the captured locations. We believe the soldiers must have parachuted in - there's no way that any ground troops would've went unnoticed for this long. Recon parties sent to investigate discovered fresh barricades have been set up. Small AA guns have been set up; we're not sure though how effective they'd be but I'd advise against trying to find out. We tried to retake one of the roads with a mismatch of soldiers, but they're just too well prepared, and we frankly weren't anticipating this move. We'd need a proper, organized attack in order to succeed at recapture. There doesn't seem to be an easy way around, either. For the west road there's just too much woods, and the other routes have bridges and other terrain that, while easy to move supplies across, are likely rigged to either blow, or they'll have defenses beyond to bottleneck us."

Asgore interrupted. "Hold on - you said they parachuted in? What the hell has our air force been doing? Or the anti-aircraft guns set up along the forest edge?"

Undyne grimaced. "We're not entirely certain at this point, but we have a guess. Yesterday, there was a 12 minute loss of signal at three adjacent radar stations located about here." She pointed at the map, near the location of the attacks. "Events like this are uncommon but not unheard of - usually, they're caused by some technical issue or other, and like every other time this has happened, we quickly received a confirmation signal from the working crew - or so it seems. A group of soldiers sent to check in received hostile fire before fully reaching the station, and we suspect that the Niacan military has overtaken these stations. If they did, there'd be a narrow corridor that they could've slipped into our airspace from. In response we've set up more radar stations nearby, and are putting into place a more robust reporting system, so they can't play this trick twice."

Asgore breathed out heavily. "Hm. Going back, now that the main supply roads are cut, what about the railroads? Can they sustain our logistics needs?"

Undyne winced at the mention of the railroad. She wanted nothing more than to shrink into her armour and not have to see the look on Asgore's face.

"We checked the railway lines to see if it could provide an alternative, but... it seems that the tracks have been bombed at multiple locations, likely around the same time as the attacks on the supply roads. We learned this the hard way - a train full of reinforcements derailed, and most of the soldiers have dusted. We never discovered this though until a survivor of the attack managed to restore contact with us. There's a team out there right now making improvised repairs, but it'll take at least a week before they're back up to full capacity."

Asgore slammed his fist against the table, making Undyne jump slightly. "Damn it! Our troops can't fight on without supplies like this!"

Undyne spoke again. "I fear for worse, your highness - it seems like they're going to be surrounded and captured. This to me doesn't look like an ordinary counter-attack. It's too well organized. Not to mention they knew exactly where, and when our convoys were going to be going through. Every convoy has scouting and decoy parties that scour the road twenty minutes ahead. When we contacted the ones for the ambushed convoys, though, they didn't see anything - and reports from the convoys suggest that the Niacan ambushers weren't so well hidden that they would've been unnoticed. The only possibility is that the attacking force landed in the tiny twenty minute window between the scouts and the main convoy. They had to have had access to the convoy scheduling."

Asgore nodded in agreement. "To pull these attacks off, they would have needed to know a lot more than they should. We have to have a mole in our top ranks. But who…"

His eyes darkened as he thought of something. "I need to make a call to Asriel. I want him back here and giving his input on the situation."

Undyne nodded as he stepped outside, and took out his phone. He first called Asriel's cell, and tried calling it. But, it went straight to voicemail. This was highly unusual. Still, Asgore decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Asriel had told him when he left he was going to be going up to a small little town to stay at a hotel there for a couple weeks. He called the hotel Asriel was supposed to be staying at.

"King Asgore! Thank you for calling Sunset Inns, how may I be of service today, your majesty?"

Asgore spoke calmly. "Hi, can you please put me on the phone with the prince, Asriel Dreemurr? He should've checked in a week and a half ago."

The woman on the other end was silent, then sounded confused as she responded. "I'm sorry your highness, but your son never checked in. He doesn't even have a reservation here!" Asgore tried to maintain his composure.

"I see. Well, thank you anyway for your time."

The woman sounded apologetic. "No problem, sorry again!" He then hung up. Without putting the phone down, he called the number of the driver Asriel always had when he left the capital. As soon as the monster picked up, Asgore didn't give him a chance to speak.

"Listen, before you say anything, I need to express that it is important I get a truthful answer. Did you drive Asriel anywhere in the past ten days? If so, I need to know the exact location you sent him."

The driver again was apologetic. "I'm sorry your highness, but I haven't driven Prince Asriel anywhere! I haven't even spoken to him in the past ten days. Is something wrong?"

Asgore's grip tightened on the phone and he gritted his teeth. "...No. Everything is fine." He immediately hung up, as a revelation burned within him. Still, he refused to believe it. Out of desperation, he called the airline Asriel claimed to be flying on.

"Thank you for calling Ebott Airlines! Your highness, it's an honor as always to receive a call from you. How can we help you today?"

Asgore spoke quickly, his voice betraying his desperation. "I need you to pull up the passenger list for flight EBT4891, that departed on October 10th. Was Asriel Dreemurr on that plane?"

The voice replied. "Of course, one moment sire." There was silence, and then an apologetic voice returned. "I'm sorry your highness, I'm not seeing anything here under the prince's name, or anyone from the royal family."

Asgore took a deep breath before responding. "Alright...thank you anyway." He hung up, then walked back into the war room. Undyne noticed how upset Asgore was.

"Sire?"

Asgore growled. "I want the troops in Niaca, and here at home to focus on finding Asriel. If he is sighted, he is to be arrested at once."

Undyne was stunned. "On what charge?"

As Asgore turned to leave, he barked over his shoulder. "Espionage, and high treason! He's our mole!" Undyne's jaw nearly hit the ground as Asgore stormed out. Asgore felt a wave of emotions. Anger, fury, even rage, but beneath it all, a deep layer of hurt.

"Of all the people, my son...why did it have to be you?"