One World: Many Souls

Chapter 49: The Failed Comic

Angel's Point of View:

"Mom! Dad! Mom! Dad! Mom! Dad!"

"Joker, we're right over here, baby bone." My husband and I were relaxing for a few moments just seconds prior to our son calling out for us. At the ripe age of ten, Joker was a bright bundle of energy like his uncle, but was a joke lover just like his father.

It was a beautiful fall day with rich colors in the trees as they began to fall from their limbs. I happily grabbed a full basket of apples for some treats for the kids later that day. Our older boy had already helped me pick what we wanted from our apple tree to make into said treats. Eras was always eager to help and to bake. And my eldest daughter was helping as well since she wanted to eat it all. That crazy kid of mine...

Joker bolted out to the four of us who were out and about in the backyard among the fruit trees. The others had stayed inside to play a few games together on their day off. Once he got to our sides, he eagerly pulled at his father's jacket, a bright smile on his face.

"What's up, baby bone? Ya find me a-peeling?"

Already the other three of us giggled, knowing that fall was the best time for apple puns from my husband. He was certainly in the spirit, and it seemed Joker was there with him.

"Come play with me Dad! We can leaf the tree of them be!"

"Oh my!" I couldn't help the giggles that came out of me and the eldest twins certainly. Taking a look to my husband, I smiled brightly at him. "It seems someone has learned how to pun. You might have to boost your game, Darling."

"Well now..." That dangerous glint came to Sans' eye. One that he'd been good about keeping on the down low so the kids had time to understand the puns he was using so they could either get mad or play with him. And it seemed his son born of his lovely habits was finally ready to play. "Ya ready ta play hard-core, son? Can ya handle bein' the apple of m'pie? Oh man, it's giving me all the peelings."

Joker only bounced up and down, still pulling on his father's old coat. "I couldn't have picked a better teacher!"

Hearing Joker actually come back with a joke, following the same pattern as his father, oh that was going to be an amazing moment in their lives.

"Oh my God, Mom!" Arial had to hide her face in my back to keep from laughing too loudly to not hear the conversation. Her entire body was shaking while Eras had the apple baskets around him.

Pointing at the show before us, he raised an eyebrow with a smirk. "As much as I want to cook these down, we can watch them for a bit, can't we?"

Nodding silently to my eldest son, turned my attention back to the pair whose eyes were bright and eager in the moments.

"Well, I'm glad this teacher can help ya blossom. It's quite the juicy profession."

"I'm sure you'll keep me well-rounded in my studies."

"O'course! Gotta have ya ripe for every challenge ahead."

"Especially if I wanna branch-out. So many things look a-peeling!"

"Eh!" Sans looked slightly offended at his son using the same joke he used at the beginning of their conversation. "No stealin' m'jokes, Joker. Don't ya know that's my seedy sense o'humor ya got?"

His youngest son only grinned at him. "Even if it keeps me on the cider side of life?"

"Oh my lord..." The rest of us were trying so hard not to laugh to enjoy all the moments. But in those moments, we couldn't stop ourselves from falling over. Our laughter rang out, the two men I could see taking in every second of it, beaming in pride. Seeing us fall over made the two of the laugh before they assisted us.

"Come on, Precious." Sans was quick to help me up while Joker assisted his siblings. "We can keep up our punny behavior inside while ya and the kids make those tasty treats."

"Yeah Mom!" Joker snickered and made sure to latch onto his father the second his siblings were standing. "We can be a real treat!"

"Oh no!" Laughter rang out over the backyard while we tried to settle ourselves, but my husband and son refused to let us. I don't remember how long we were out there or until we got inside, but it was quite some time. Our home was filled with warm laughter, and the smell of apples and all worries pushed out of our minds.

Third Person Point of View:

"I hope this is to your taste, Dr. Baldeth."

"Thank you, Silke." The doctor paused as he looked around the room once more that was presented to him by his newest boss. The large basement-like area was converted into a lab for him to work with. Contaminants against the walls to grow his experiments, file cabinets to keep his notes. Cameras on the walls and a physical one on a table to record all information about said experiments as they grew, as well as test tubes and an area for him to experiment with drugs to also use on his test subjects. "It's even larger than the area I had before. You've also allowed me to see through every desire of mine without shackling me to laws and regulations."

"There would be no point in holding you back." Silke responded in a monotone voice. She herself looked over what she'd given him, making sure that all he'd requested for items had been placed at least appropriately to assist her comrade. "Will this allow you enough to work with?"

"Most certainly. Now it's just to get test subjects."

"I also have that prepared for you as well." Silke turned her head back to the entrance to the area and snapped her fingers. From the doorway walked in Luke with a snicker as well as two women behind him. They followed him obediently and stood before the doctor. One of them was very obviously pregnant while the other was rather skinny. Luke then leaned against the doorway with a snicker.

"Got two already for you, Doc." Luke snickered from where he leaned against the wall. "Got these two broads from the homeless shelters. Mettaton and I researched to make sure the two of them wouldn't be missed and got what we could for medical records."

Luke took the time then to open up the folders that were in his hands. He chuckled before filtered through the papers. He then clipped them closed and had one of the women take the documents from him to pass to the doctor.

"Looks like with these bitches, they ran away from home years ago. The big one here, she had a one night stand with a rabbit style monster and ended up with an insane baby count. She's actually only five months along, but she's got fucking four kids in there. Like the god-damn phrase, 'multiple like rabbits.' And this other one? Picked her up just a week ago. She's only two months along, but she had a nasty break up with her monster partner a short while ago. Looks like it was a 'siren'. Trying to get you some different varieties so you got lots of play around with."

"Interesting..." With the files in hand, he looked over them deeply before looking the women up and down. He made sure to feel over them and inspect them to make sure they were of adequate health. "And it seems the two of them are entirely under your control?"

"Hell yeah, and we're looking out for any others we can grab too." Pulling out another file from the inside of his jacket, he had the other woman pass it to the doctor. "We got our eyes on another list of dumb girls in similar situations. Soon as we know that they're entirely cut off from others or have no support system, we'll grab 'em for you."

"Wonderful!" That actually brought a rather bright smile to the male. He eagerly grabbed that other file, looking it over. There was a good chance of at least getting a few other women who were pregnant with part monster children that would be not only great for his research, but also for weapons against the very house they would be battling in time. "Now, will it be hard to keep them under control but also give control to another? If it's at all possible, keeping them under control while I monitor them and their progress with their pregnancies would be easier if I could simply tell them to do certain things instead of telling you what I need them to do."

"Yeah, it's simple enough. I just tell them who to obey besides me and it registers with the spell." Luke kicked himself away from the wall before he stood before the women he brought it. "Listen up, you broads. You listen to this guy, the doc, too. Do whatever he says. Don't disobey him. Got it?"

The women both stood there as if they were before a drill sergeant, ridged, cold and unfazed by his words. Simple responses of 'yes' made it to the ears of the coherent occupants of the room while Luke turned back to the doctor and grinned.

"All set, Doc."

"Appreciated, Luke." Dr. Baldeth then turned his attention to the two women with him. "Now you two will be my helping hands along with my test subjects. You will be required to handle anything I give you with care and vocalize if there is something wrong with your body as these children grow. I want them to grow to full term naturally to understand their habits. You will nurse them and help them to grow, and will be sent out to breed with others of the monster people as well. The more children you can produce, the better. Now then, you two can start with helping me setting up my office. Anything too heavy you will not pick up and shall vocalize to me to have another take care of. On that note, perhaps you could find me some meat head somewhere for that purpose Luke? I could also use them like a bodyguard or if a child one day becomes too rowdy."

"Easy enough." The younger male saluted the doctor before turning to their boss. "Anything else you need from me or gotta tell me or Mettaton?"

"No, everything is going well according to plan." Silke hardly batted an eye as she looked to the situation before her. "I understand that this will be a timely project for you, I only ask that you use your tools wisely to make an army of half-breeds to face the family."

"Of course, Silke. I understand ma'am." The doctor looked about his room once more before darting forward to start. "I will alert you once I have made more progress or if I have more to show off."

"See to it that you do."

And with that, the party dispersed. Luke left down a darkened hallway laughing. Silke left to her own devices while Dr. Baldeth was left with the two ladies he was just gifted. Quickly he put them and himself to work preparing his space. He did have a lot of work to do after all.

Witch's Note:

(After another week of waiting for responses to come in from those close to Halloween Witch and Mystic Girl, finally they were seeing some results from their desperate hard work. Seeing signals actually come in rather quickly from Chaos and Shadow, the girls were rather relived to see that some people were okay, safe and communicating.

Taking another week to improve on their base some more, and increase the signal strength, they now were much more confident with their new signal going out, that they were safe from whatever was going on at their old base.)

Halloween Witch: Oh my fuck! I think we finally got it.

(She raises up her hands, full of tools and rather ratty looking wires, before turning back to Mystic Girl.)

Mystic Girl: You fixed it? You actually fixed it? Like it won't break down again? Like it did halfway through the week during your last send out?

Halloween Witch: Yes, I think I finally got it, so we're going to test this bad boy out! You want to do the honors?

Mystic Girl: I am always happy to push any big red buttons!

(Mystic Girl eagerly jumps in place, at least allowing Halloween to get out form under the table, before she slams her hand down on the button. The two women watch eagerly from their positions as their screen quadrupled in size, taking up an entire wall, before signals came in all over the place for them to see and messages blasted their computers.

Halloween Witch: Holy fuck we did it!

Mystic Girl: Yeah we did! What do you from everyone?

(Halloween looks over the screen carefully to see that messages from Chaos and Shadow have come in from their different locations. Chaos was finally seen in another realm online with his partner Red. Halloween could also see the computer hooking up to a scrambler system to prevent unwanted parties from gaining access.)

Halloween Witch: Damn that second in command of yours is good! He's got a scrambler already working to keep us all safe. I can copy that code and pass it around to the others, to strengthen their signal, and get out a better message to them all, and we can finally communicate.

Mystic Girl: I know he's fucking good, why do you think I recruited him?

Halloween Witch: (She laughs) We can worry about how good our members are later, but let's relish in the fact that we've finally got something going good after almost a month! Hopefully everyone can really hear us after this, so we can get them here, or meet up at one of the safest locations to plan to fucking get our base back! I don't know about you, but I miss my god damn bed. And my kitchen!

Myst Girl: Duh! We had to leave behind that fresh batch of dumplings that Jager made!

Halloween Witch: Don't remind me! I wanted some too! And he cooked them with apple whiskey this time!

(A beep comes in on the monitor, and both girls hesitantly look to it as its from the old channel, one they hadn't yet disconnected. Taking a careful look on the scattered line… the girls noticed that its Mystic Boy sending out a distress signal. The girls carefully looked at what was sent, before looking at each other nervously.

Mystic Girl: Can we even trust that signal? I thought Mystic Boy had been caught after the week before.

Halloween Witch: I wish we could… Mystic Boy seemed like she had repented for what she'd done to us… but… we can't prove right now that she hasn't been captured and being used to drag us in as a trap. We need help for that. Now that our signal is stronger, we can get the others to gather or meet in a particular location either here with us, or with another who has a stronger set up, and then make a plan together. We can't do anything without their opinion as well. If we go in blind, we'd be just as bad off as Mystic Boy with no help. We'd be doing a disservice to her by not being careful.

Mystic Girl: So to get this shit straight, your saying we can't do anything now, because we could be captured or killed by being lured into a trap? Say they're using Mystic Boy as bait?

Halloween Witch: Its very possible, and the fact that we don't know that is what hurts us the most. We can't send help while we're still very much not in a good place ourselves. We lost our base, all our items, all our weapons, defenses, our friends are still missing. We'd be no help at all.

Mystic Girl: … fair. Last thing we need is to get more people hurt.

Halloween Witch: So let's spend this time gather the others, information, and whatever we can. I'll isolate the old signal so we can still get transmission from Mystic Boy, but this way we can't be traced. And it looks like Shadow is actually near one of their bases, looks like he's sending a signal to ask about reconnaissance. That would help in all regards, so I'm going to have him do that and hopefully he can meet up with us soon.

Mystic Girl: I can agree to that. So let's get this shit started, what's next?

Halloween Witch: Hey wait a second… I got two more signals! Holy shit! Its Shady and River! Hang on… (she works at adjusting the signal.) Looks like… he's trapped somewhere, but not much detail on where, but it doesn't seem like he's in enemy hands… And River? Looks like… oh shit!

Mystic Girl: What? WHAT!?

Halloween Witch: River is going after Mystic Boys signal! God damn it… but it could be a trap and we can't help. Fuck! Mystic, we're pulling another all nighter! Get that signal going pronto on the strongest setting! We've got a shit ton of work to do and no time to do it!

(The girls get back to work with sending out messages to all that can here them on the new channel, now strengthened by those they have made contact with. They isolated Mystic Boy's signal, but kept it to a lone monitor to the side, blinking red to follow that transmission and see what happens. They sadly still couldn't do anything for her, but hoped to learn more soon so perhaps they could.

The girls send out a much stronger message that time, trying to get everyone then to gather at their location in the heart of the nearest ocean. Their base is deep under the waves, without easy access, unless you get the codes from them to have a shuttle come and get you.)

(Will you heed their call?)

If anyone can hear me, keep this code hidden. LIX, LXIII, LXIV, LXVI.

They must not know when we plan to counter attack…

We don't have much time… we must gather our forces and information…

A life is in the balance…