Monster Age: A Fantasy Epic

by GR Griffin

  Something he could not explain. A form of hindsight he developed during the war. He learned to trust it, and more often than none, his expectations proved to be valid.

  Something big was looming on the horizon. Something powerful and earth-shattering. It could happen within the next hour or the next month. The feeling in their gut impossible to predict, but it was not a matter of if, but when.

  Change was coming. Not just in the Outerworld, not just on planet Earth, but on an unimaginable scale.

  He stepped into his living quarters and there, before the crack under the front door, lay a rectangle of white paper, made grey in the dimness. He hobbled over as fast as he could, his shaking inners begging him to read it, convincing him that it was important, having waited two hundred years for this moment. He aimed his arm at the paper and out extended a rod from his sleeve that snagged it from the floor and into his waiting hand. With as much free time as Haze has, he found ways to cope with his shortcomings – usually with the latest in technology.

  Haze blinked twice, activating the flashlight built into his glasses. The page illuminated, but remained as hazy as his own name. Single lenses were not enough. He raised his eyebrows and two extra lenses whirled over his current ones, further bringing the poster into focus.

  He waggled his eyebrows again. More lenses overlapped. The page became clearer.

  Eyebrows twitched. Another layer of glass shifted before his eyes. The page was almost clear. He squinted, creasing the wrinkles around his eyes.

  One more time. One more pair of lenses, bringing the number up to five. The sharp clarity took a second to settle in before unsettling his insides in the worst way.

  A wanted poster. A human. Their name was Fleck. And they were here in the Outerworld, right here, right now.

  In that one moment, all of Professor Haze’s assumptions had been justified – the human’s presence clarified everything. Hardly anybody believed him at first; his beliefs the ramblings of an old man who lost his marbles a long time ago. One of the first who did being his former associate and most trusted friend: the late Emperor Juhi. May the gods bless his dusty remains.

  The human was not here by accident, or by sheer chance. Their arrival was more than just a roll of the dice. It was fate that they were amongst them. It was a calling. It was destiny.

  It was providence.

  “The prophecy…” he whispered. “We’re so close now.”

  On the face of the poster, two large words were scrawled in red. Directed at him.

  Get ready

  Chapter 17: Outerworld's Most Wanted

  Alphys awoke to a terrible, bitter aftertaste on the tip of her tongue. She was face down on the armrest of the couch in Bub’s house, her cheek misshapen against the worn armrest. One arm hung over the side, numb and cold like a block of ice. A blanket had been draped over her, likely after she had passed out. She opened her eyes to find her glasses lopsided across the nose, distorting her first sight of the party’s aftermath.

  The floor was littered before the party commenced, making it impossible to gauge how much worse it had become. The microphone dangled from its perch, with grubby claw marks on the base. Her grubby claw marks.

  Oh, jeez… Alphys remembered. All of it.

  She sat up – the blanket sliding off her shoulders – and fixed her glasses and worked the feeling back into her arm. She rubbed her hairless head, nursing the headache that wasn’t there. Wait, the headache that wasn’t there? That was right. She was fine, even after all the hard stuff she stuffed down her throat. The actual amount, she lost count after the first drink, was enough to make the hardest of drinkers sick to their stomachs. Yet she had no tell-tale signs of a hangover; no throbbing skull, no sandpaper tongue, no bloodshot eyes, no queasy stomach, no feelings of wanting to throw up, no nothing.

  Her collar brushed against her chin; the top button of her coat was undone. She quickly buttoned it up, realising that one of her sleeves had been rolled up to her elbow. Pulling it straight, she found crushed, empty cups stuffed in her pockets.

  Okay, Alphys. You were just letting your hair down last night. Today, we get serious and start looking for the others.

  A lady walked in, her entrance represented by the muffled thump of the front door as it hit the garbage-covered floor. Alphys remembered how sudden Bub was in tearing the entrance to his own home from its hinges. He really needed to get that fixed, and clean his house. Who was she kidding? His home could have been reduced to a crater and he would not bat an eye. It was a miracle the structure had been built in the first place.

  “Morning, Doctor,” the lady said. A slim monster, with white hair and an afro hair of cauliflower, had in her possession a bowl of spaghetti. Topped with a spoonful of tomato sauce, which was still on the spoon. “That was some party last night, huh?”

  Alphys’s forehead burned. It was one heck of a party, and she was the one in the spotlight. If there was any place she belonged at a party, it was on the uninvited list. “I, uh, g-guess it was.” She eyed the bowl of pasta. The sauce was still hot. Her belly grumbled. “Did I sleep through the morning? Is that lunch?”

  “Nope, this is breakfast.” She handed the bowl over to the former royal scientist.

  “Um, thanks.” Taking the fork, which also had a spoonful of tomato sauce on it, Alphys curled up a forkful, ready to consume. Not the first time in her life she’s had noodles for breakfast. “It looks delicious.”

  The cauliflower lady perked up a chuckle as the guest of honour cleaned the fork with a single mouthful. “If you think that tastes good, you’ve been living with that guy for way too long.” Her laughter rose upon seeing the look on Alphys’s face. The taste was unlike anything her buds could comprehend. “Courtesy from one of your bony friends – the taller one, in the goofy outfit. He’s over at the Sweet and Sour’s across the street. Been cooking up nothing but spaghetti since… I don’t think he even slept. He just entered the kitchen and asserted himself.”

  Alphys wished she had told her sooner. She had been fortunate enough to avoid Papyrus’s cooking, hearing some dark rumours from his brother. As she experienced Papyrus’s spaghetti, she had no idea what to think. What were these underlying flavours she was detecting? Strawberries? Pomegranate? Grapes? Paprika? Papyrus didn’t cook these guys’ distant relatives, did he?

  Alphys swallowed the mouthful with a hard gulp. She could feel its indescribable texture slither down her food pipe of make a splash in her stomach acid. Confusion set in; no idea whether to hate it or like it. Without thinking, she was already rolling up a second helping on the fork. The second taste was different than the first. Was that a hint of ramen she was detecting?

  The cauliflower lady glanced back at the door, realising that she was awkwardly watching her eat. “Well, I guess I’ll leave you to it. He’s still at that place if you want to find him.”

  She left Bub’s house, leaving the scientist to nurse the food. The spaghetti – while not terrible, a huge stepping stone for Papyrus – was difficult to define. With every bite, Alphys struggled to reach a consensus. It was tasty and yet disgusting. It was moist and yet dry. It was sweet and yet sour. It was the equivalent of every packet of instant noodles she has ever tasted. Before she knew it, the bowl had been cleaned, but she still needed more to reach an opinion.

  With the bowl in her claws and the cutlery jangling against the brim, she hopped off the couch and wadded through the garbage out the dismantled door.

  The first thing she noticed in the morning light was the further result of the party. Goers were spread out across the road, sprawled out like casualties on a battlefield. Typical Saturday night. Bub was not present amongst them, having crashed at someone else’s house, both through the backdoor and in their second bathroom – which the owners didn’t even know they had.

  The low hanging sun hurt her eyes, without a trace of cloud to shield it. The ground simmered with what could be described as rising regret. The food they ate, the drinks they drank, the
shenanigans they shenaniganed, all seemed like good ideas at the time. It is not until they wake up the next morning, gazing up into the brightening sky, do they wonder what they are doing with their lives and think to themselves “never again”. Except it is never one “never again”, but many throughout the course of years.

  She made it to the restaurant. Opening the door, the signature smell of pasta and burning was overpowering, masking the odours ingrained in all the years Sweet and Sour’s has stood. Not only was spaghetti in the air, but it was also on the menu as every conscious and vertical citizen of A. Town ate away at platefuls on their tables. Nothing else existed except that Italian cuisine.

  Two monsters at a nearby bench, a red onion and a white onion, waved at Alphys. “Hey, Doctor A,” the latter hollered, "saw you shaking that tail last night.”

  His friend joined in with, “You were on fire with that mic in your hand, baby!”

  Alphys responded with a meek wave back, unsure how to respond or if she should respond. Would a simple ‘thanks’ be too little or too much? She did not know. In hindsight, she should have postponed that teleporter and worked on that time machine instead, so she could travel back in time and erase last night from existence, which happened because she focused on the teleporter.

  At the far end of the restaurant, past the counter, a cooking pot blazed with the fires of the underworld. Papyrus simmered away, making more spaghetti despite the plates beyond plates of the stuff lined up behind him, enough to feed A. Town for the next week. A toque blanche rested on his noggin and a sauce splattered apron took the shape of his battle body. His method was brash and reckless, with a hint of pride, just how Undyne taught him.

  Undyne…

  Just being reminded of her ached the Undyne-shaped hole in Alphys’s heart. She loved her, loved everything about her. The way she laughed. The gentleness of her kisses. The way she shook her hair. How safe Alphys felt when she was near her. The sound of her knuckles crackling before the video game thrashing began. Okay, maybe Alphys was not a big fan of the crackling knuckles bit, but nobody was perfect.

  Alphys planned for them to spend the rest of their lives together. Now she was gone. Missing. Lost somewhere beyond her reach. Alphys feared the worst, that she may never see her beloved again.

  Alphys pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind. They would not help her now. Being a downer hardly got her anywhere in life. Optimistic was the word she was looking for. She needed to be optimistic. After all, Sans and Papyrus had found her. Those guys were both here, alive, well, and in one piece. Surely Undyne would be fine, as well as Asgore and Toriel. They would find each other, and together they would find Fleck, and then all of them would sort this mess out and return home.

  While the skeleton stirred away the pasta, the actual employees – paid by the hour – stood back and watched. They had every right to kick Papyrus out, but did no such thing, watching with stunned admiration. Never before had they seen someone cook with such passion, such energy, and such enthusiasm; even though his art was terrible. That, and the fact that they did not need to work, at least while he was present.

  One of the employees inspected the amount of spaghetti swamping up the table tops, which was slowly going cold with each passing minute. “He’s a freaking machine… without an off switch.”

  The monster beside him, a manager by the look of him, said, “Who knew we had all this spaghetti in storage.”

  The same employee faced the manager. “Actually, we didn’t.”

  “We didn’t? What do you mean we didn’t?” The manager pointed to all the noodles laid out in every plate they could spare. “You mean to tell me all this spaghetti isn’t ours? We’re selling food that we don’t own?”

  “It can’t be ours. We had no reason to supply it in the first place since nobody around these parts ever touched the stuff.”

  “Then where did all this spaghetti come from?” the manager asked belligerently.

  “Apparently, from Skeletor’s dorky cousin over there.” He pointed over at the skeleton by the combusting pot, who cackled in a fashion similar to that of another cartoony skeleton.

  “But how come there’s so much of it?” The manager of this branch again turned to the pasta. There was enough to circle the entire Outerworld, twice. “Where did he get it from?”

  A pause from the guy who operated the fryer. “There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for that.” Another pause. “I just can’t think of one right now.”

  Another clerk picked up a bowl, topped with a dollop of tomato paste, and swirled a few strands around a fork. “I couldn’t care less myself,” he said before using his teeth to take it off the prongs. “It’s not that bad.”

  The manager faced the customers, then back to those under his watch. “You said before that nobody picked spaghetti around here. They seem pretty content stuffing their faces with it out there now.”

  With a strand hanging from his bottom lip, the clerk eating the spaghetti pointed, with his fork, at the heaps. “Have a taste,” he mumbled before slurping up the strand.

  The manager hesitated as his twitchy fingers neared a plate of untouched pasta, feeling like a guinea pig. He was not a guinea pig, he was a hamster. He picked up a separate plate and took a nibble. His face scrunched in reflex. “What in – this stuff’s disgusting!” He almost dropped the plate in disgust, it was that bad.

  As the clerk chomped on a second mouthful, he mumbled, “Now try one of our famed, extra-large brief burgers...”

  The burgers bearing that name were prepped and ready on the grilling rack. Eat one and you will be hungry again an hour later. Although, by now, all of them would’ve been snatched up. How curious that there were no takers todays, for the first time since they were introduced twenty years ago. Taking a knife and fork, the manager cut off a small chunk and popped it into his mouth. He chewed slow, shifting it against both cheeks. It did not take him long to figure out the reason for their abandonment. After forcing it down, he rushed back to the spaghetti. By contrast, the strands of pasta were like gold. The clerk gave him the ‘hate to say I told you so’ look.

  Alphys reached the counter. “Hey, P-Papyrus,” she said loud enough to catch his attention.

  “A-ha, Doctor Alphys.” Papyrus took his eyes away from the pot he was stirring. The same pot that was on fire. His face was as black as coals. “Did the bowl I dispatch reach you?”

  Alphys reached up and slid her bowl onto the top. “Sure did. The flavour was… interesting.” She studied the heaps of it on the tables. “You’ve been busy. Where’d you get all this spaghetti from anyway?”

  “A magician never reveals his secrets,” Papyrus answered with a flick of an overcooked, pitch-black wooden spoon.

  “You can tell me, Papyrus. W-we’re friends.”

  “Of course, but what if I, the great Papyrus, told you that there were secrets that did not reveal their magicians. How is that possible, I believe you are wondering? It is quite simple, actually; magic is a two-way street – with a crosswalk for pedestrian safety. For how can a magician exist without secrets? And how can a secret reveal itself to the magician at the cost of its own livelihood? Once a secret is shared, it loses its job. Somebody needs to look out for the employment rate of all the secrets out there, and their little white fami-lies, and if nobody else will, then this responsibility must fall upon these round, plastic shoulders.”

  “So, basically, you’re telling me you don’t know where you got all this spaghetti either.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good to know.” Alphys wiped her brow. Already, the stale heat was making her head spin. “Are you nearly done? Be-because we really should start looking for Fleck now.”

  Papyrus extinguished the flames by turning off the gas. “Allow me to finish this final batch and I’ll be right with you.” He grabbed the handles of the pot, both hands protected with oven mitts that were already over his existing red gloves. He turned the billowing pot onto its side, pouring the ste
aming contents into a bowl that was six helpings too small, then topped it with a dollop of sauce that was six helpings too small.

  His job was done. Well done, just like the spaghetti flooding the counters. Papyrus threw off the mitts, the apron, the hat, and the smoulder on his face in one fluid motion.

  The employees seemed to groan as he made his exit, sad to see him go. Not because he was a cool guy – even though he wasn’t – but because it meant they had to figure out what to do with all the noodles.

  His walk through the divide of tables and chairs had all the flare of a rap artist walking off the stage after delivering a once in a lifetime performance. He had no microphone to drop, so the spoon-shaped piece of charcoal would have to do. It shattered upon hitting the tile floor – a mess for the janitor to clean up.

  Alphys pulled the door open, politely holding it for her friend. “We’ll pick up Sans and then we’ll make our move.”

  Papyrus stepped into the light. “He better be awake because I’m not carrying him.”

  One of the party casualties, with his face pressed against the window, overheard them. He raised his hand and pointed down the street, where he vaguely remembered the guy in the blue hoodie stumbling off to.

  Following his directions, they found Sans budged upright against a house wall three-hundred yards away, with his hands stuffed in his pockets, looking straight ahead like he was on the lookout for humans. At first, they did not recognise him due to the odd range of clothes he was wearing – including a pair of cowboy boots, a baggy pair of orange jeans, a white fur coat with tails that reached the ground, and a purple fedora; all of which were too big for him – and a piece of paper stuck to his forehead, hiding his face. His ribcage rose and fell in a relaxing rhythm to the diaphragm that he did not possess. The paper fluttered in harmony with his snoring – in when he inhaled and out when he exhaled.

  “Judging by the sound of low-pitched octave snoring I detect, that can mean one thing…” Papyrus said, then shouted, “Sans, wake up, you lazybones!”