Onward I walked; swaying, stopping and starting, and spinning, all to the rhythm unheard by the increasingly damp little monster that was doing his best to match pace my uneven gait. Reflections flitted past in the puddles we trodded past and through, showing a pair of figures and faces that seemed only half-familiar. Were my features always that ruggedly charming? It seemed impossible, and yet. I gave the face in the puddle a winning smile, and it gave me one back, even more charming than mine.
A moment later, my foot swayed into the puddle, and the reflection became an incoherent splash of light.
"Man, Undyne Is so cool," Stripy casually starts to say as we continue down the tunnel. "She beats up bad guys and NEVER loses." More ranting about Undyne, was it? It really was obsessed. To an extent, I could understand that; she's pretty cool for a child murderer. I was almost looking forward to our next meeting. "If I was a human," it continued, "I would wet the bed every night…"
"Sure, of course," I interjected, "But how would your life be different?"
"Oh, shut up!" Stripy replied, giving me an exaggerated glare whose effect was slightly undermined by the giggles escaping its mouth.
I continued to stride forward in relative silence for an eternity of minutes.
The path bent to one side, another long dark pool that faded into the shadows to one side. Another platform appeared a little ways from this one, where a single vibrantly teal flower rose from the soil. What a strange flower it was. Teal being, of course, the strongest color meant it was already eye-catching. The fact that it rose as tall as me, with almost ethereal petals extending out of it, only made it more captivating.
"What sort of flower is that, Stripy?" I said to the little monster, who had also stopped to smell the flower, so to speak. "Actually, do you know anything about flowers at all?"
"Huh? I mean, a little, I guess," it replied. "I learned about flowers and stuff in school. But everyone knows about those! They're echo flowers! They repeat back the last thing that's been said near them, over and over, until another voice comes and replaces it."
"Is that right?" I said, my curiosity well and truly piqued, now. "How does that work, I wonder? Mimicry is a time-honored strategy in both flora and fauna, but this is something truly peculiar. Is it storing and… duplicating the sound waves somehow? Or does it have a larynx-analogue of its own, and it's just imitating the sounds it hears? But how is it processing the sensory input? Does it have a brain?"
I turned to see the creature beside me looking amused and unnerved by the intensity in my voice. "Man, you sure are a weirdo," It said with a chuckle and a half. "My teachers love to have you in their class, instead of… me."
I scoffed at that. "Oh please, they're teachers," I retorted. "They'll find something to bitch about anyway. It's what they do. I think it's in the job description, actually…"
"Hey, I'm sure there's some kind of model student that could totally exist that they would never get mad at," he replied, exaggerated offense in his face… which quickly morphed into a sly smirk. "And the fact that I can't even picture one is completely irrelevant, obviously."
"Oh yes," I returned in perfect deadpan, as we heroically held back laughter. "Obviously." Our composure held for a miraculous amount of time (two seconds) before it finally broke into peals of laughter that carried through the relatively open air, over the dark undersea.
We stood there for a long moment, after the laughter died down, catching our breath. It felt… strange, to sit still for even a moment. I couldn't remember the last time I'd stopped moving onward. Had I… ever? I was struck with a strange feeling, then, like I'd come into existence only a moment before, and everything I remembered before that point was…
"So, one time," Stripy suddenly spoke up, breaking me out of my strange reverie. "We had a school project where we had to take care of a flower."
"Not…" I began haltingly. "Not a yellow flower that talked about 'friendliness' pellets, was it?"
He turned to me suddenly, a bemused look on his face. "Huh? No, nothing like that. Gosh, I've never seen a flower talk before!"
"Count yourself as lucky," I replied, a long suffering sigh escaping my throat. "Flowers are assholes."
"I'll, uh… take your word for it. Anyway," Stripy continued, "we had to take care of an entirely normal and not freaky at all flower one time. Well, not entirely normal; they were donated by the king."
"The king?" I asked. "I'm guessing you're not referring to Elvis, there."
"What?" He replied, laughing. "No, I'm talking about the guy who runs the whole place. Mr. Dreemurr, he had us call him. Anyway, uh… he donated some of the flowers from his garden to the class project, and when he came over to deliver them, he ended up spending the whole period sitting in the classroom telling us about responsibility and all that stuff. That got me thinking…"
"A dangerous pastime," I interjected.
"I know! But anyways," he continued. "YO! How cool would it be if UNDYNE came to school!? She could beat up ALL the teachers!"
I gave that sentiment a vicious chuckle. "Now that I'd pay to see." I replied. "I can think of a fair few people I wouldn't mind seeing reduced to pulp by such a creature." I favored him with a lopsided grin, "But, you… if you want something done right, you'd better do it yourself."
He gave that a hesitant, uncertain chuckle. There was silence for a long moment as we walked on.
"Ummm, maybe she wouldn't beat up the teachers…" Stripy spoke up finally, breaking the silence. "She's too cool to ever hurt an innocent person!"
This startled a loud snort and a single barking laugh out of me. He looked at me with a start, and I favored him with a wry and sardonic grin. "Okay, okay," he returned quickly. "maybe 'innocent' is going too far, but still!"
"That's not…" I began, then shook my head. "Nevermind."
And so we walked onward in silence, along the twisting path. Along lakeside path we strode, until even the wall to one side fell away to the abyss beneath. Points of blue light pierced down into the water, which shone with a teal luminescence that faded into green, then purple, then purest black as it stretched out into the fathomless expanse.
Swam I through the endless waters, the winds at my back. Delved I, endless fathoms deep. Pearls surround me. Pearls surround me. Change, did I. Change, did I. Change, did I. To something rich and… strange. Full fathom five laid I. The sea. The C. The Z.
I turned back, no longer hearing the stripy creature's footsteps (were those even truly feet?) behind me. He stared out into the water… no, he stared above it. I followed his gaze. There was a figure towering above it all. Pillars and windows and gates hanging open like vast eyes and mouths. A grand castle, overlooking all that it beheld. Overlooking the waters, overlooking the land, overlooking all of their sins. A towering edifice of marble and ocean towers, perfectly illuminated amidst the gloom.
It was… beautiful.
"Yo, this ledge is way too steep…" Stripy said.
I looked at the ledge that was impeding our path. It was about twice my height, by the looks of it. It didn't seem that difficult to get over, but I chose not to voice that opinion to the creature; climbing is rarely the purview of bipeds with no hands. Or arms, for that matter. Besides, it's never fun to climb in the rain.
"Yo," he continued, "you wanna see Undyne, right…?"
"See her? Oh, I'm planning on a lot more than just 'seeing' her," I said with a low chuckle. That was an odd thing to say. More than just seeing her? What was that supposed to mean?
I pulled myself up and over the ledge, as the stripy creature below complained about the rough handling. It ran off to find another way through, tripping and faceplanting again as it did.
It doe that a lot, but I can hardly blame it. Just look at its body; its disproportionate head, its lack of arms, its pathetically small tale… nothing about it is balanced properly. Not even close. How can such a creature even exist?
The same way as rain and snow and trees underground, I suppose.
(The answer to each question is the same: it doesn't)
Onward I walked, alone again now. No fanatic devotee, no armored stalker. Just the abyss to one side, and a wall lined with ancient carvings to the other. The carvings…
The monsters, afraid of your power, declared war on humanity. They attacked suddenly, and without mercy, stealing soul after soul before anyone even knew they'd been betrayed. But you already knew that, didn't you?
In the end, it could hardly be called a war. With their stolen souls, they became unstoppable. They stole the souls of all mankind, and sealed them away beneath the mountain. They stole our souls, Frisk.
THEY STOLE OUR SOULS, FRISK.
SAVE US, FRISK.
…The carvings didn't matter. It would just be more monster propaganda about how they are actually innocent victims in all this, and yada yada yada. I moved forward without bothering to read any of it, mustering my resolve to continue onto the precarious wooden pathway above the abyss. I couldn't see any supports holding it up, but it seemed sturdy enough, somehow.
As I walked, the path twisted before me. Like writhing snake, forming a winding and perilous road. I smiled. I knew what this sort of signamancy meant.
So… she's back again, is she? Good. What do you have to give me this time, my bonnie lass?
A flash of teal luminescence. Then, ten more. Spearheads erupted from nothing, leaving not a mark upon the wood as they vanished. A radiant figure faded into view, half cast in shadow.
Spears appearing from the floor around me, now?
I turned to the figure staring me down from the bridge below me, and grinned.
Now that's some flash, alright.
In near-perfect unison, we erupted into motion. I lunged forward, devouring the remaining path forward in a split-instant, flying past the beacons of teal along the path, ignoring the bends and leaping across first one gap, then a second, then… I spun through the air across the gap to my right, skittering across the wood as her spears erupted on the wrong side entirely.
"Oh you won't catch me, oh Slithereedee!" I shout down at her as peals of laughter escape my lips. "You may catch all the others, but you won't catch me!"
Soon enough, the twisting path opened up into a maze of twisty passages, each one alike. Each one long enough I could not see the end. Oh well, it's not like there was any rush.
If anything…
And so I ran to and fro, down one path or up another. I ran and I leapt and I twirled and I froze and I rolled. Could I have leapt to the other bridge and attacker her? Yes. Easily. But it wasn't the time for that sort of thing. One moment blurred into the next, as though it was all a single, fluid, beatific movement. As though we were swimming through the air. Each attack happened perfectly in rhythm with each dodge, and each attack, and each dodge. I could feel the pulses of magic running through the floor as though they were a part of me; feel the wood beneath as though I were immersed in it; each rush of air setting my nerves alight. Which part was I controlling, here? Was I the dodger, the attacker, the spear, the bridge, the air? Was there such a distinction?
The path ahead opened up into a wide area, then narrowed again. Another dead end. The attacks had ceased. Where had the bridge gone? I turned to try again, my wide eyes burning in the sourceless glare.
And then I saw her standing there.
She stood atop my bridge, blocking the way back. Cornering me. Was this it? Was our time up, and the final battle already here? I looked around at the narrow bridge, and the inky black nothingness that surrounded us, at the searing glare that illuminated and shadowed us in equal measure. Certainly an excellent place for it.
Still…
I reached for my knife with a sigh, readying myself for what was to come.
A flash of light shot past, suddenly. I just barely made out a trio of teal spears go by.
That attack was… nowhere near me. Had she thought I would attempt to lunge at her the moment she stepped forward? Otherwise, what could she have been trying to accomplish with that?
And then the floor beneath me shook and cracked, and I had my answer.
Do I fear to fall? No. I have fallen already. I have been falling since I came here, at one speed or another. A freefall, which means it costs me naught. No, a plunge into the abyss couldn't possibly kill me. She must know that. So this must be…
Ah, I see. So she doesn't want this to end either. So this must be an… until next time.
Another crack. I looked up at her armored visage, and favored her with a fond smile and a little lopsided salute.
"Until next time, then, my lovely lass."
One final crack.
