Monster Age

by GR Griffin

  The sheer sight made them all run faster, Fleck included. It was the longest sprint in their life, and felt longer than usual; however, it was all worth it in the end.

  Fleck emerged at the mouth to blue, cloudless skies and clear, crisp air and fresh snow underfoot. They would have to guess that defeating Vail also meant that his hold upon this world was gone also. The sun shone in the centre of the sky, directly above. Even through the winter snap, the sunshine was magnificent, flooding their body with its goodness.

  The monsters were already charging down the embankment, still running as if their lives depended on it, and for good reason.

  Just a short distance away, visible between the trees draped in white, lay the brown bark and green treetops of the Forest. No more than five minutes away.

  And then it was Fleck’s turn to sprint toward it.

  All they could think about was home. All they had to do was find the professor, just how Sam an’ Rita told them, and surely he would have a way to send them back to the place their soul yearned to be at, with the people they wanted to spend the rest of their life with.

  They took one last look back at the mountain behind them. Beneath all that rock, somewhere in that web of tunnel and lost mines, there remained one lost soul, probably destined to be alone for the rest of his days.

  The revelation stopped Fleck cold.

  Flowey…

  Asriel…

  By leaving Vail – Geoffrey – they had abandoned him once more. Again, they had freed the many at the cost of the few. They saved everyone, except the life that mattered the most.

  “You don’t even know me… Why do you still care?” Asriel’s question still burned in their mind.

  Because he was the one who deserved to be saved the most.

  Fleck sighed sadly, then resumed their journey closer to the Forest, now moving slower.

  * * *

  The Winter’s Edge train director’s personal phone went off for the twentieth time that day, a little over the usual average of three. He was glued to his desk, fearing to move, knowing that the next call could come in any moment now. The plucked the phone off the receiver and brought it to his ears, knowing full well what was about to be said.

  “More delays?” he asked the second the receiver was before his mouth.

  His assumption was true: there had indeed been another train delay. Breakdowns; cracks appearing in the tracks; storage failures; they just kept coming, so far with no serious accidents. And these were from trains that did not travel through the Shattered Zone.

  In fact, that train was the first one to arrive before all the phone calls started piling in.

  There was no explanation to it. No good reason why or how, but just that they were. All his fellow directors could do was inform him, just how he would inform them if an occurrence were to happen on his end.

  Alas, this train director was not there, so he had only the words of the others to go on, and the granted evidence as the sixth train scheduled to reach them had not arrived.

  After he was done, he replaced the phone back down and leaned back in his chair. From around the corner of his desk, he made out the shrouded figure of the one they found asleep.

  Barb the Bounty Hunter was motionless in the middle of his cramped office, still covered in that fire blanket and still with her head rested on that borrowed pillow. In and out, she breathed without a hitch. The train director wished he could be her for a few short hours and sleep this distressing time away.

  His scaly skin tingled, his throat begged for air. The train director needed to step out for a minute and get some sunshine on himself. Being as quiet as possible, he pushed himself up and stepped over the bounty hunter, making sure not to tread on any square inch of her frame. Not only would that have been rude and careless, but she also had a reputation for kicking butt, which he did not want to be on the receiving end of.

  He pushed through the door to his office and was rewarded with some much needed sunshine. He looked up, the sun was directly overhead, having completed its rise and was now beginning to descend.

  The tracks were quiet, the platforms deserted; not like how it was usually. He liked being busy; made the time fly.

  The phone buzzed to life, striking cold hard reality back into the train director.

  The train director let it ring twice, took one final breath, and then went to enter his office.

  He froze by the doorframe.

  His desk was there.

  The phone was there, vibrating repeatedly.

  The fire blanket was there on the floor with the pillow beside it.

  Barb was not.

  Chapter 23: Gone Fishing

  As if clean oceans, sawdust beaches and silent jungles were already strange enough, these lands only got stranger to Undyne as they trampled across crinkly plastic grass and passed rubber trees. Each tree had Fleck’s face plastered all over it as if they were the lost pet to an overzealous owner, which did nothing to quell her anger issues. Already, she disliked this place as each step gave her away, each crack travelling for miles around.

  So this was the Plain-plain, and as the posters on every vertical surface in sight stated, this was where her wimpy loser for a friend was last seen. All across the northern horizon lay the bumpy fields, overlooked by the frozen mountain far, far away. No better place to start, she guessed.

  This should be a piece of cake. Undyne vividly recalled fond memories of hounding Fleck through Waterfall when she imagined them a bad guy… or girl: lobbing spears at them from across the river; conjuring them beneath Fleck’s feet on the walkways; sending them falling to the junkyard; being one second away from running right through them before that naïve monster kid showed up; and chasing them as they made their escape toward Hotland. Ah, good times. At least, in Undyne’s case anyway, probably not such a swell experience for Fleck.

  Who could blame her? Undyne’s duty back then was focused on fulfilling the wishes of her king and mentor, Asgore Dreemurr, and retrieving the seventh and final human soul in order to break the barrier and enact their long awaited revenge upon the world. The last thing she expected was to be sharing Golden Flower Tea with that exact same human while sat at the opposite ends of the broken table in her house.

  Actually, the last-last thing she expected was herself telling Fleck her life story.

  No, wait! The last-last-last thing she expected was giving them a one-on-one extra private training lesson in Papyrus’s stead.

  Scratch that. The last-last-last-last thing she expected was to be standing on that cliff sheer hours later, with the broken barrier behind her, friends by her side, natural sunlight on her scales for the first time, the green surface before her, and all thoughts of vengeance forgotten.

  Undyne never thought she would ever call that human child her friend, nor did she ever dream of one day being the one to come to their rescue. Yet, there she was, coming to the aid of her human friend. If Undyne had no problem tracking Fleck in the Underground, then this former captain should easily be able to pick up their trail. Even if Fleck left so much as a single strand of hair, she had a fresh lead to go on.

  So far, after an hour of searching, she had found nothing yet. Her best bet would be to ask around, see if anyone had something willing to share. Although, she would have to find other monsters first.

  Up ahead, appearing over the next hill, Undyne came across a river. A rapid-flowing trail before her path, stretching to the west. No doubt that its source came from the waterfall a few hundred feet away; grey mist surrounded its foot. It poured from the impressive stature of Highkeep Enclave that hovered high above.

  Undyne looked up at the middle island and furrowed her brow, feeling her lips part into a snarl, brandishing her yellow fangs as if they alone would suddenly coerce it and its people into submission.

  She tried to imagine what a guy with a name like Zeus would look like. She liked to guess that this Zeus was a small, weedy coward of a monster who hid behind his men and gave himself
that moniker to make himself sound tougher. On the other hand, the one other monster ruler she had to base her assumptions on was none other than Asgore, and it took her many years just to land a single strike on him – a strike that she regretted immediately afterwards.

  With clenched fists, Undyne pointed up to the island and then traced the same finger across her throat, even though she knew that nobody saw it.

  “Fleck first,” she whispered to herself, “then I’m coming for you, Zeus.” Whoever awaited her up there, she would find out soon enough. No matter what he was, whether he was strong or weak, fast or slow, smart or stupid, he would feel her own brand of justice. And it would sting.

  Further down the river, closer to the waterfall, a wooden roof peeked from behind a hill. A house, nearby. She followed the river, travelling upstream a short ways – coming across a small bridge that she crossed – until the rest of the house came into view. A small and rustic one-storey cabin with an outhouse on one side and a small square of farmland on the other. With intact windows and traces of fresh markings leading in, out and around the area, people had been here recently.

  As she neared the house, there were no signs to suggest that anyone was home. No smoke fumed from the chimney and no sounds could be heard from inside. The note nailed to the front door proved that her assumptions were correct.

  Gone fishing Gone shopping Gone out

  Be back whenever Be back eventually Be back soon

  Sincerely,

  Kind regards,

  Signed,

  Sam an’ Rita

  The note was recent and a mess of scribbles and crossings, written with two distinct pens from two distinct hands. An argument in of itself. Two people, whose marital status Undyne did not know, fighting over what to write. People fought over anything these days.

  She turned and stepped off the deck; her footsteps went from heavy thumps to crisp crackling as they switched from wood to grass. Her search had just begun. Nothing but the cabin, the stream, and the copse of twenty-odd bushes nearby. Funny, Undyne could have sworn those bushes were further away the last time she looked; in fact, she couldn’t recall even passing them in the first place.

  Her single eye went down to the ground. Without analysing it too much, she was able to easily make out individual traces indented into the prickly pasture through crumpled, compressed, and broken shards of green, even though they were already starting to wear thin. Footprints, many of them, ran in circles between the cabin and the river. One set of large boot prints, a grown male, most likely Sam; one set of slightly smaller prints, a woman, probably this Rita from the note; and a trail following the stream like a stampede ran through within the last day or two. All those prints were large and heavy. Just then, another set of prints were found, this one—

  Undyne’s eye snapped wide open. “Wait!”

  She took three steps over unmarked turf and knelt closer to her sightings. One set of markings showed someone leave the cabin and head north. The soles were small, either that of a small monster or… a child. And the fact that there was only one trail leading from the house and none heading toward the house was suspicious.

  Undyne had seen so many posters with Fleck on them that she had all the information down. Fleck was wanted for escaping Highkeep Enclave – that giant floating rock with the waterfall to her right – and was last seen in the Plain-plain, the island she was on right there. Somehow, Fleck had gotten from up there all the way to here.

  She looked over to the river, finding groves still in the sand and gravel. Still fresh, even after the wind and rain had gotten to them. She studied them intently, anticipating the movements portrayed.

  She started at the deep dent by the river’s edge first. “The man of the house sat here,” she whispered. “For a while, several days at a time from the looks of it.” Some marks radiated from the dent: boot and handprints. “He gets up suddenly… scrambles to his feet.” A deeper set by the water’s edge. “Then decides to take a dip.”

  Undyne traces the grooves back to the house. “He gets out of the water and heads back inside. Now he’s moving differently. His steps are further apart, and deeper, especially around the toes. He was both running and suddenly heavier. Carrying something. Someone…?”

  Undyne looked over everything: the waterfall, the river, the tracks, and the cabin. She was so engrossed in her findings that she failed to notice the bushes drawing nearer when she wasn’t looking. The scene was like a puzzle and all the clues were its pieces. All she needed to do was place the pieces in the right place and – hold on, Undyne hated puzzles! This was a job better suited for Papyrus, but since he wasn’t around, she had to do it.

  “Fleck started up there and escaped to this island,” she analysed. “A man is sitting out here and gets up suddenly. He must’ve saw something, or someone, in the water. He dives in, drags something out, and carries it into the cabin. Then a single set of small footprints leave the cabin and head north.”

  By now, all twenty bushes had surrounded her, yet she had failed to click. There was a metre of space between them and her.

  “It was Fleck!” Undyne snapped up straight. “Fleck was here! They had to be!” During her moment of discovery, one of the bushes rustled as it sneezed. She responded automatically with “Gesundheit.”

  “Thanks,” the bush replied.

  There was a pause as neither Undyne nor the bushes muttered a single word.

  “Private,” the bush beside the one that sneezed said with a gruff voice, “what did we say about our cover?”

  After a moment to think, a reply came: “That I shouldn’t blow it?”

  “Uh huh, and what did you just do?”

  Another pause from the sneezy bush. “I blew it, didn’t I?”

  It was about here that Undyne realised that something was up. “Hey, wait a minute…” she murmured.

  Another bush mumbled. “Err, time for plan B?”

  “Forget plan B,” a shout occurred, “commence plan T: grab her!”

  All of a sudden, the bushes burst and fell limp as the twenty members of the Monster Military using them as camouflage leapt from them. They landed in a dogpile on Undyne, grabbing and gripping at anything they could. She fell to her knees, disappearing under the mountain of metal armour, any sounds she made were drowned under a chorus of grunting and shouting.

  “Down on the ground,” they ordered; “Hands behind your back,” they barked; “Stop resisting,” they demanded. The troops wrestled and fought the one target they were ordered to capture.

  There was one bush that did not collapse, yet. The one hidden within got out as if she were a celebrity stepping out of the limousine and onto the red carpet. A tall, built woman, proud in her gleaming gold armour with a red officer’s sash, a red cape lined with white fur, and a helmet with a mighty red plume on top. Colonel Fischer pulled the visor up and watched in full clarity as the men under her command subdued the suspect, or tried to. Even with all those strong pairs of hands on her back, the criminal was putting up a real fight from the way they were yelling; not a single inch of her was visible beneath them, but Fischer could imagine them slapping the shackles on.

  Colonel Fischer – with her upturned nose, ivory white skin and blue eyes – came off as the most human-looking monster one could lay eyes on. Leader of the ranged division, she reached that rank through years of training and hard graft. Ironic considering where she stood during the civil war.

  She reached to her belt and unclasped a scroll, which she unravelled and read out: “I, Colonel Fischer, by order of the Empire, place you under arrest for the destruction of Bjornliege Manor.” Where she said her name and the suspect’s crime, they were represented as empty lines on the parchment. There was no need for the scroll, the colonel had read it so many times that she knew it off by heart. However, procedure dictated that the scroll must be read to show official authority. That, and she liked the thought of how distinguished she looked as she read it. “You and your crimes will both be judge
d before the emperor and his courts. You have the right to defend yourself; however, the ruling at your sentencing will be final. Anything…”

  The next thing the colonel saw was further from what she expected, which was her men parting to reveal the suspect subdued in irons. Instead, the entire mountain of troops rose two feet off the ground, held up by a single pair of legs as if they had all melded into one entity and the legs were its means to roam. A soldier clung to the side facing Fischer was shoved off, landing hard on his shoulder and splaying flat on to his back. The fresh gap between the soldiers revealed Undyne’s face. There was no exertion in her appearance whatsoever as she gave Colonel Fischer a hard stare.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,” Undyne said, treating the nineteen soldiers clung to her as if they weren’t there. The monster on the ground squirmed under the mass of bodies, grabbed hold of her ankle and attempted to pull it out from under her. This proved fruitless as Undyne was as solid as a rooted tree. “Did you say you’re part of this so-called Empire?”

  “You heard correctly,” Colonel Fischer responded. There was a tension in her voice from never encountering someone like this before. Already, she knew that she was dealing with more than just as run-of-the-mill criminal. “I am Colonel Fischer: head of the ranged division in the Monster Military.”

  The monsters were still stuck around Undyne’s upper half. Either they were still trying to bring her down or they were afraid of letting go. “Colonel? Then you got your orders from Zeus, huh?” Undyne assumed. “The same guy who’s got the head of a certain somebody plastered across town… with a price attached to it!” She sieved the last part through her yellow teeth.

  “You’re talking about the human,” Fischer said. As she spoke, Undyne realised that she was not looking at her, but rather at those clung around her. “Understandable, but that’s not the reason why we’re having this discussion right now, criminal.”

  The annoyance on Undyne’s face multiplied. Something in that sentence irked her badly, and someone had started yanking on her hair. She retorted, stuttering slightly, “Oh, I—I’m the… the baddie here? A—after… after—hold on.”