Fear.
With bravery that found the end of what and where it could reach.
The growling beak of a snowy, bird-like monster began to loosen, both from its tensed sneer, and from its form. It broke in twine, like a poorly made sand castle. The feathers around the hollow eyes became coarse, just the same. The crust of the coarseness spread from where the High Officer's sword had slashed the monster, with the deep wound already spilling the white dust onto the grass below before the monster could even have begun to realize what had happened.
As the monster fell over it shattered as it hit the arm that had killed it, breaking apart into chunks of white that collapsed into a disorderly pile for but a brief moment before it finally turned into dust. The crack of the white soul and the wind-like sound when its magic disappeared into naught but a small mound around the High Officer's boots was the same as the cracks and wind-like sounds that surrounded him.
All around, the same brief flashes of white happened in the High Officer's periphery. The air was thick with burnt. Thick with a smell of death that was unfamiliar to the High Officer, but which he instantly recognized as such after the first monster fell to his dust-covered blade. Its inscriptions of the Xoff insignia was filled in by the dust from so many monsters.
Did their magic blend together in there? Could they feel each other? Could they still see what was happening? How the Final Battle was progressing?
Did they still feel fear?
"Today we stand not as countries, but as humans!" the High Officer had rallied as the morning fog had eased to reveal a hazy, magical glow patrolling back and forth the same as he did. "Today we punish the monsters for the countless years of betrayal!" The magical glow was red and held high. "Follow me to become human once more! Follow me to reclaim our souls as our own!"
The cheers of an entire army raising their arms and weapons with the High Officer were as one. Their voices were his own. Their mission just the same. Their want just the same. Their redemption would be just the same. Their vengeance burned with the High Officer.
And they all followed him.
The rumble behind the High Officer as he was the first to descend down the small hill was invigorating. The roars of battle sung past him. He could feel all of their hearts beating as one. Soon he wouldn't anymore.
Oh how he waited for that day.
That day that would only come by the defeat of the Monster Army. That day that would only come if the High Officer were the first to face the monsters. He would take them all on if he had to, but he didn't. He had so, so many more humans with him just behind, charging like he did with his arms, eyes, and intention hidden behind his double-sided cloak and deep, hanging fringe.
It was thick enough to not let the approaching monsters see anything in them, however the High Officer could still see perfectly through the heavy sways of hair shaking before his eyes. He could see the approaching army clad in black armor led by a massive, horned figure dressed in gold and purple where all others were black.
The Monster King's head was lowered, casting his eyes into a deep shadow that not even his conjured trident reached. Its hilt reached above him with a tied-on flag tugging hard in the charging wind, swooping down in an arc which swept over the many dark helmets of those around him. He and the High Officer would be the first to clash.
They would be the first to begin the Final Battle!
A blend of metallic resonance and magical sparking rung out in a deafening burst as the upper swing of the High Officer's sword clashed against the thrust of the Monster King's trident. For a split moment as the metal blade held fast between the red fangs of the magical trident the deep shadow over the Monster King's eyes was illuminated a bloody red. His muzzle was furrowed with crevices deeper than ravines. His teeth bared the same as those of his trident. His eyes were narrowed, burning with hate.
Flashing.
Blinks of orange and blue lit up the returning deep shadow with glints of magic that concentrated around the Monster King's trident like a thin shawl. First the magical trident streaked of orange, forcing itself through the High Officer's blade. Then it streaked of blue, and with a thrust from the Monster King, his trident glanced off the High Officer's shoulder. It hurt.
But it wasn't meant to kill.
There was hesitation among the flashes of blue and orange in the Monster King's eyes. There was a falter just before the blow was struck. There was hope that the strike would be enough for the High Officer to realize that he was outclassed. That he was going up against the Monster King. There was hope that he would stop this battle. That he would just go home and let there be peace.
"Stop this," a deep, calming voice urged as the flag tied to the trident's hilt hanging behind the Monster King was flung into the air as the two armies around the two military leaders came together in a melee unlike any other. Through the screams of battle and the violent clatter of weapons and armor the Monster King's voice was still audible. Like he was speaking directly to the High Officer. Like he was speaking directly to his… "You know this is wrong. You know this is not what is best for any of us. For either monster or human!"
Did the High Officer know that?
"Please, I beg of you."
Did it matter if he knew that?
"Stop this, please."
Something else mattered more though, no matter what he knew.
"This is meaningless!"
And that was what he felt.
"Human!"
Determined.
"Huma–"
The individual clashes which all had blended together into nothing but loud disorientations stopped silent. Both human and monster alike and unlike turned to the seemingly random monster that stuttered a step to find a balance that was pouring away from them through the gap between their breastplate and their armored legs.
White and coarse dust rained thick for long enough for all to realize what was happening. Before anyone fully realized what had happened, a small echo of a crack emerged from within the armor, followed by a shatter that seemed to go on forever as the armor pieces began to fall over, spreading shimmering dust in the wind before collapsing in a hunk of its various pieces.
Hollow with naught but the pouring, white dust settling around the black metal.
A breeze navigated through the stunned armies, carrying with it the warm dust into the remainder of the fog that hadn't dissipated yet. It had the air glitter like frost. It touched at all of the humans.
And their souls flourished.
The High Officer felt desire within him. He felt delight at what he had just witnessed. He felt the trident fang sting deeper in his shoulder, but more than that, he felt the fear of the monster that wielded it. He felt that there was nothing the monster could do to him.
And that the monster felt the same way too.
"Gorey!" came a desperate voice from behind in the ranks when the High Officer pulled away from the glancing stab of the Monster King's trident. The High Officer reached for his sword which he had dropped, and as soon as his hand gripped at the hilt, he slashed at the Monster King. The steel cut only through air though. The image of the Monster King obscured by a thick spray of his own dust roared within the High Officer's soul, unfulfilled.
The Monster Queen had managed to drag her king away in the nick of time, standing with him just half a step away from the High Officer's reach. As he closed that gap, a desperate ball of magical fire emerged with haste and violent heat from the Monster Queen's hands.
It exploded against the broadside of his sword which the High Officer defended himself with into long, licking flames that surrounded his body like grasping fingers. It singed at his skin and hair, and forced him back as his throat burned with his breaths. The smell of burning hair forced him to cut his long, hanging fringe. Strands of foul-smelling hair turned to ash in the wind, carried the same as the dust of the first-slain monster.
The Monster Royals flinched as they saw the High Officer's eyes. "Gerson!" the Monster Queen called, urging the Monster King back to safety within the surrounding Royal Guards that took their place with quivering shields and weakly held spears.
From between them emerged a familiar sight for the High Officer. The monster who had trained him when he was young. A turtle monster with a conjured hammer slung over his shell and shoulders. The angled wings on either side of the hammer were just the same as when the High Officer first saw the monster talking about how to be a proper soldier one must always follow the orders given.
But it was the High Officer that gave the orders.
It was the High Officer that felt as connected to his army as the monsters did.
It was their fault.
And they would pay for it!
"Archers!" the High Officer called with his sword raised high. "The Monster Royals!" As strings were taut behind him the turtle monster barked orders towards the Royal Guard that had converged around the two Boss Monsters. "Fire!"
A hail of arrows were unleashed against the monsters, forcing them to converge around the Monster Royals to protect them. The tied-on flag at the end of the Monster King's trident waved back and forth as he sliced blue arcs above him and the Monster Queen, slicing through the incoming hail with long swipes of his magical weapon. The arrows that descended outside his the reach of his desperate swipes were incinerated by the Monster Queen's fire who's dress and ears flowed sharply with her quick twists and turns to throw her magical fire where was needed.
None of the deadly volley reached their target, but that wasn't what they were meant to do. "Charge!" That they turned to harmless splinter and ash without any real damage was nothing. "Force them even closer together!"
The monsters had converged around the Monster Royals, packing them tighter in their hefty armors. Their movement had been even more hindered. "Bring in their flank!" The High Officer had but to pack them tighter and tighter. He had but to restrict their movements more and more. All they could do was defend with magic, but never had monster magic been able to stave off the cut of a human's sword. Never had they been able to defend against killing intent.
And never had the High Officer felt such a thrill for battle.
While the soldiers around him charged at the clenching monster army, he walked silent and steadily. The wind from the countless humans carving around him had his double-sided cloak reaching forward towards the monster he had forced eye contact with.
Through the barred visor he could see fear. He could see how the monster was trying to back away as much as it could, but it only served to further the High Officer's plan. His soldiers attacked the monsters around the one the High Officer saw as his. He had not ordered them to, but they all seemed to understand what he wanted.
And he what they wanted.
Flakes of dust touched at the High Officer's cheek, dotting it a shimmering white. He felt it blush as more and more dust filled the air between him and the one monster forced to feel the comrades around it fall and allow it to back away further and further. Did it even realize why it could back away? Did it even understand that its comrades were falling by the dozens around it? Did it even realize that the spear it held looked flaccid in its weak, unsure stabs in front of it? What did it think? What did it feel?
All useless questions.
"Keze! Help m–"
The desperate voice rang out over the echoing cracks of the souls around it and the loud collapse of the hollow armor pieces as the length of the High Officer's sword plunged into the protection-less armpit made out of grass-green fur. One last stumble backwards was the last actions of the retreating monster before the High Officer felt that the resistance around the blade of his sword grew thinner and thinner. In less than a second his blade was all that held up the heavy breastplate, and slid down slowly as the High Officer retracted his blade with a slightly dampened metallic grind to it.
The blade was covered in white.
The dust was warm to the touch as the High Officer cleaned his blade with a methodical and indulging wipe that cleaned the blade, except where the insignia of his family crest was engraved. He left that filled with dust. A memory, of sorts. Many memories, in fact, as it was the dust of a monster. To him though it was but a single one. His first kill.
His first step to reclaim his soul as his own.
He could feel it, deep inside him. The curse he was given to by the Second Fusion was changing. It was reacting to the death of the monster he had slain by his own hands. It was becoming less of the stranger within him that felt like himself, and more like that it was himself that felt like himself. The dust that he had collected in his hand he clutched and held close to his chest. There was a flash of the fear from the monster he had slain. The last thoughts that ran through its mind.
The last name it thought.
With a throw of the dust he had in his hand the High Officer threw his head back."Keze!" he roared into the dust that snowed down on his face, singing him with a different warmth than that of the Monster Queen's fireball. "Keze!" he shouted a second time, feeling the flakes of dust tingle with hope on his flush cheeks. The hope that had held the monster back. The hope that had gotten it killed. It tickled like the bite of a hot pepper on his skin, collecting in the valleys of his scars and age. His skin had never before been so...sensitive. Never been so flush and so aware of what was touching it.
Was this what the soldiers that had raided the villages that chose to employ hope felt? Was this what they described when they said that they felt that the curse of the Second Fusion was as if gone for them when they felt the dust of the monsters on them? They had described it as but a hint of something. An idea that they felt so strongly about.
An idea that was proven correct.
"Our souls are ours!" sung the High Officer with his weapon raised high and with the remaining dust in the engraving trickling down and sparkling in the sunlight from behind. "The curse is fading!"
He had never imagined that it would be like this! To feel so in control of himself once again! He had forgotten it so! Like coming back to breathe freely again after weeks, if not months, of sickness. This…
This was the cure!
His blade found another monster, cut and slain. Another appeared behind its crumbling form, stabbed and slain. A third appeared on his flank with a magical halberd, but another human found it before it could find the High Officer. With each turn of the High Officer's head he could see dust spreading. With each slash of his sword he could feel that the dust was glowing on him. He felt the slain monster's fear radiate warmer and warmer until the beading sweat began to carve deep floods into the thick, white layer.
The humans were gaining ground quickly, cutting down each monster with less and less thought to the swings of their weapons. Magic kept them from approaching even closer to the Monster Royals who were responsible for the majority of the protective magic. However though, the humans were close enough to the Monster Royals that the aerial monsters had to descend and fight closer to the humans. With the quick, immediate charge there hadn't been any time for any boulders to drop out of the sky and halt the approach of the human army. It was all going the way the High Officer had planned.
Monster dust was thick in the air. Thicker than the fog that had coveted the area at morn. It did not only affect the humans, silencing their curse, but it also did affect the monsters. The High Officer could easily see that. He could easily see how the thickened air had the monsters in turmoil. Many of them never even understood the situation they were in.
The weakness of their souls, not only when it came to raw power, but their interconnectedness as well. All this death of their kin around them must have brought them all into more fright than they themselves could handle. The fear of all their slain brothers and sisters thickening around them in the air, screaming their last in their souls louder and louder and louder.
The ferocity and desperation of the magic they cast showed that, and monsters turned to dust without neither a human's blade or arrow touching them. A flying, feathery serpent collapsed from above, landing in haypile-sized lumps of dust that forced a few dozen humans back, dazed by the weight that fell on them and coughing from all the dust that filled their lungs.
It was the most damage any monster would ever do at the Final Battle.
Damage that was as if nothing though, still. The humans that staggered back were quickly replaced by those behind them, keeping on the pressure onto the wavering monster lines held together not by strength, but by the rallying cries from their Monster Royals.
Oh how the High Officer–
"Here."
A bow and three arrows were handed to the High Officer by an archer. The smile underneath his long fringe was knowing, and shared with the High Officer who took two of them, leaving the last for the archer to hold onto, as well as the High Officer's sword.
The air tasted of burnt from the dust that fluttered within it as the High Officer breathed in while notching one of the arrows and tensing the string. He had to blink away some of the dust which had gathered around his eyes to aim clearly, yet he felt that he could have seen where to shoot even with his eyes closed. He was aiming for two large Boss Monsters among their armored subjects.
How could he miss?
And he didn't.
Yet he did not hit either. His arrow flew true towards its target, but when it closed in, it passed through a dome of sorts, prompting the Monster Queen to hit it with a fireball with but the barest of looks at it. A mere moment later the Monster King turned his head towards where the arrow had been loosened. As the smolder of the fire magic lingered his muzzle and visage was contorted in rage and fury.
However as the magic sizzled away with the falling ash from the wooden arrow dotting the white ground with black soot, the Monster King's expression changed. It distorted from the rage and fury into fear. A different kind of fear from what was so immensely present within his subjects though. A fear not for himself.
But for the High Officer who's eyes he had met underneath the burnt fringe.
It lasted for only a mere second, but there was no mistaken the compassion within the Monster King's eyes. He saw something within the High Officer that completely removed the two from the Final Battle around them. He saw something that he did not see in the other humans. He saw.
"I am so sorry..."
And he offered all of his compassion.
"High Officer?"
The High Officer staggered, reaching for the archer next to him for balance. He found it at the hilt of his sword that he had given to the archer to hold. He found it as he clasped the hilt hard and secure. He found it as pushed himself back up on his feet.
He found it in the anger that bubbled within him like a raging cauldron.
"How dare he!"
A mere monster giving his sympathies towards a human! A mere monster mouthing that he was sorry when he was the one that could be defeated at any second.
"High Office–"
Wild steps had the dust on the ground spouting up into the air like geysers around the High Officer's feet as he charged into the depths of the defending monsters, cutting down those that noticed him with ease, and those that did not with more ease. One beaked monster tried to step in front of him.
But it fell as well.
Before its dust even reached the ground the High Officer killed another one. Before its dust reached the ground another one was slain. Magic tore at him, chilling, burning, shocking, but he weathered through them all with blisters and red all over him. There was a trail of blood behind him, but not enough to stop him. He saw the Monster King getting closer and closer.
"King Asgore!"
The High Officer's shout gave the Monster King enough time, but not the turtle monster that was his vanguard. Before the teal-glowing hammer could swing, the High Officer was past, sword raised high before descending upon the Monster King's raised trident. The impact burrowed the hilt into the soil, drowning the purple flag in the dust of those its colors flew for.
The High Officer wanted this.
He wanted the Monster King to defend himself so that he could be defeated the most. The Monster Queen tried to help, but the archer that the High Officer ran from pelted her with arrows, forcing her to counter each one with her fire magic.
"What do you see!?" demanded the High Officer. "What do you see in my eyes!?" The hilt of the trident sunk even deeper into the ground. "Tell me!" Why did he show pity towards the High Officer? Why? "What did you see!" Why!
The answer came as the magical trident broke and the High Officer's sword deflected against the Monster King's armor. A deep cut discolored the otherwise-clean breastplate. Shining and polished like a king's armor should be. Shined, polished.
Reflective.
The High Officer flinched at the eyes looking back at him from underneath the burnt fringe. He fell off the Monster King with a startled scream, crawling away until he felt his entire body being forced down into the ground. The magic from the monster with the blue ears sticking out of its purple hood stirred within him, and he felt...something...inside of him trash and ravage. It rose up from his chest, tasting fouler than foul. Viscous black spewed from his mouth, and his vision blurred. A different white from the blurry white of the ground landed in front of him, followed by a blurry cloak and armor.
"I didn't see you," came a deep and apologetic voice. "I didn't see anything of you, human."
I...It w-was…. It was…
"I only saw your soul."
