by GR Griffin
Enough. If anyone was going to cast the first stone, the entitlement was Emperor Zeus's alone. He seized his greatsword by both hands and threw all his strength into one swing. Only ever once witnessed by Fleck, they saw it coming too late. He swept Heaven's Shard parallel to the ground, slicing several unfortunate raindrops and sending a devastating shockwave across the clearing, halting more drops momentarily and making them change in completely different directions in mid-air.
All his enemies were caught in the wave and forced back. Asgore drove his trident in to the ground with one hand while his other caught Toriel who, in turned, snagged Fleck, forming a chain. Sans and Papyrus conjured bones up from the ground: Papyrus with two on both sides to grab hold of while Sans rose an entire white wall of collagen behind him to lean back on. Mew Mew bent down and anchored herself with hooks fitted into the soles of her feet, something the person manning her controller could not do. Alphys tumbled backward. Undyne reached out and grabbed her at the cost of her own ground. Her spear, tip down, dislodged itself in the silken earth upon taking their combined weight. Fortunately, Alphys pressed a button and Mew Mew reacted, turning and launching a grappling hook from out the knot in her school tie which wrapped around the spear's shaft.
The instant the shockwave ended, Zeus lunged while their defences were down, making a clean line toward Asgore.
* * *
Uneventful was the word Kiya and Oswall – back near the northern wall – were looking for. Kaiser would have another thought, but his were as cloudy as the smoke rising in beards from his body. The human showed up, cut their way inside, waved a little saying 'Hey, I'm still here', and ran past them.
The order had already came through: the human had been guided to the Emperor; he shall take care what the others could not. The troops might as well have opened the door for them and escorted them straight to the big man himself. Speaking of opening the door…
"Um," Kiya stammered, her focus still on the street leading upwards, "what do we do now?"
"I guess we go back to defending the gate while the Emperor takes care of the human," Oswall answered.
"Oh, yeah. Now that you mention it, we do have one itty-bitty problem…"
Over at the grand entrance, the drawbridge lay flat, those same chains used to open and close it now limp across the moat, broken. The spindly fingers are the Forest were barely visible.
Kiya nodded. "Yeah… No way are we pulling that back up anytime soon, not with the chains broken. The door's wide open for anyone to enter."
"Wait a minute, the chains broke?" Oswall inquired. "That's impossible, they were strong enough to lift, like, fifty times the bridge's weight."
"They did drop it pretty hard…"
"Like that hasn't happened before." Oswall wrinkled his nose. "I smell foul play."
Kiya sampled the air. "I smell something burning," she replied, then shot another glance to the downed and out Kaiser.
A sudden tap on her shoulder dragged Kiya back to Oswall who was gazing through the open entrance. Across the blurry horizon, it started as one, then multiplied tenfold every second, people – a mob of them – converging out of the mist and descending upon Castle Highkeep. An army ready to do battle.
"That's not good…" Kiya remarked.
* * *
Asgore quickly raised his trident to block the first blow; Heaven's Shard became caught between the red tines. Asgore twisted and span his weapon in an attempt to pull the sword from Zeus's grasp. With hands on the hilt, the emperor stayed one with his weapon and pushed it to connect with the old king.
"Zeus!" Asgore exerted. "Don't… make… me…!"
Their weapons fell to one side and Toriel darted out, fire at the ready. She threw her hands forward and launched a barrage, all of which struck Zeus, staggering him back; his armour pockmarked with black burns. As another volley of fire came his way, Zeus countered them with a well-timed swipe with the broad of his weapon.
The king lunged, leading with his weapon. Zeus faced him just in time to catch a glint in his eyes: the right eye flashed blue before the left flashed orange. The red trident swung, carrying a trail the same shade of light as the first glint. Zeus raised his sword to parry, but there was no impact; the weapon, strangely, fazed through both his block and himself.
His guard dropped. "Wha—?"
Zeus may have been standing still to avoid the blue strike, but he wasn't moving for the orange. The follow up, in a wake of orange, collided with his upper arm, knocking him to the ground in a thirty foot long streak of slurry.
"Give it up!" Asgore shouted. "This is not the way!"
The Emperor got up and was about to press his attack when a whirling noise buzzed, followed by several bullets pinging against his blade and armour.
* * *
Sam an' Rita along with a few freedom fighters bolted down the hall, rushing with such abandon as to meet the planned out schedule. Everywhere they went was met with walls of stone, broken up by the occasional ornament, whether it be a painting or a vase or a side table holdings paintings and vases.
Hard flooring echoed footsteps up and down the length, it being the one and only sound discernible. Many outsiders fantasised grand Castle Highkeep and its luxuries of thick carpets and cushy chairs and beds one could get lost in for hours; around the clock kitchens with ovens never ceasing and thick with the delicious aroma of the finest in vegetarian meat cuisine, churning out dish after mouth-watering dish; wardrobes lined with garments of silk trimmed with gold and encrusted with diamonds, ordained with sapphire earrings, opal pendants, jade rings and ruby cufflinks; it only took five minutes for the pair of bandages to yearn for fresh air, sunshine, green grass, and the soothing flow of water from outside their window.
Those days they may get back, but only if they saw this fight through to the end. The forces from the north should be descending right about now, which should undoubtedly draw the attention of most of the armed forces. The fact that they were spread so thin should make the plan much easier. If Sam an' Rita can make contact with the moles, they can launch a surprise attack and defeat the defenders while they're too busy preparing for the assault, hopefully before the army gets there.
They turned the next corner and ran straight into a small group of soldiers. These guys were not adorned in the shiny plates of the Monster Military, but of the lighter variety with boiled leather. Four of them, not a problem. However, it was not the guys in armour who surprised them at that moment, it was the man who led them. He took one look at Sam and his wife and drew a smile across his lips.
"Well, well, if it isn't Lieutenant Sam and the lovely Lieutenant Rita," Lord Grill smarmed, scratching his hairy chin – both of them. His unexpected summoning to the castle wasn't a waste of his time after all, in fact, this was the greatest stroke of luck he has had all day. "What an unpleasant surprise."
Sam cursed in his mind while his belly turned – a sight he made no attempt to hide. So many ways for the plan to be disrupted and fate had thrown the worst one at them. After a sigh: "Lord Grill. There's a face I hoped to never see again. The feelin' ain't changed for two hundred years."
The feeling was mutual. Indeed, it had been a whole two centuries. Time and age had changed them, but not to an extent where they were unrecognisable. Rita never liked that smug grin of his, nor the glint of self-importance in his dark eyes. Even before the war, Sam thought Lord Grill needed to seriously rethink his eating habits, now he wondered how he was still alive with his balloon shape.
"Still sore over your side losing, I bet." Grill clicked his tongue whilst giving the country folk a look from head to toe, admiring their ragged attire the same way a doctor admired third-degree burns. "I see what defeat has done to you."
Rita placed her arms akimbo; no need to look twice upon the lord. "I see what victory did to you," she threw right back.
The divide was as strong as black meeting white: Grill was fat, lazy, manipulative, smartly dressed and womanising with twenty wives all filing
for divorce claims; Sam an' Rita were healthy, hardworking, straightforward, shabby and happily married.
Lord Grill parted his lips to make his comeback. He had the line out in his head: I'll make you eat those words. Before he could speak the first syllable, he realised the perfect comeback to his comeback would not be difficult to make.
He said it anyway. "I'll make you eat those words."
"Assumin' you don't eat them first," Rita countered.
Grill motioned forward. "Handle the rest," he ordered the men at his command, "but leave the lieutenants to me. They are mine and mine alone."
His private militia moved forward and engaged the members of the rebellion; boiled armour clashing with monsters who dabbled in their own magic and experienced a heated bar fight once or twice. A couple crashed to the floor, another locked weapons. The mummy lieutenants were completely untouched and left alone in the fight, exactly how the lord ordered.
"Our last meeting was cut very short, if memory serves. I'm confident nothing will interrupt us this time." Lord Grill may have been afraid of many things: heights, flying, needles, legwarmers, hundred calorie snacks, yoghurt, lists over eight bullet points long and, of recent, angry fishy cyclopes, but not these two. Never the rebellion.
Grill lifted his hands and conjured up floating beef wellington, steaks, slabs of beef, salami, chicken, turkeys, and a leg of red meat he grabbed to use as a club. You are what you eat just got serious. He rose his weapon and charged, carrying his massive frame like a battering ram.
With a little luck, Lord Grill would either collapse from exhaustion, trip on his own feet, or get a hernia, none of which Sam could chance. He threw his hands out and bandages shot from his wrists which wrapped around Grill's left arm. Grill chuckled and began to tug, pulling Sam closer. Rita used her own bandage magic to grab him by the other arm and, together, the husband and wife threw the bear lord against the right-hand wall.
Sam an' Rita wrapped Grill up like a mummy, from his neck to his ankles, hoping to bind him into submission. Lord Grill would not go down like that. He scrunched up his features and grunted with exertion as he pushed his arms out against the bindings. One wrapping gave away, followed by another, and then they all tore at once. He roared as he outstretched his arms, layered with dangling shreds.
The couple threw more dressings, but Grill caught them both and wrenched hard, yanking the mummies off their feet.
* * *
Mew Mew had both miniguns trained on Zeus, the barrels spinning to the same drone. Her controller a short distance away, deft with the actual controller in her claws.
"Today's gym activity," Mew Mew croaked, "track and field."
Alphys compressed both shoulders buttons and the dual guns went loud. Zeus dashed to the side, moving around with the trail of gunfire close behind, blasting up dirt, shredding his cape, and ricocheting off his armour and his sword. Zeus ran inwards and made a dash toward the anime robot. He got close enough and leapt high, aiming to destroy her with one clean slice down the middle.
Alphys was too quick for him and pushed the left bumper. On cue, Mew Mew threw off her firearms and replaced them with katana blades. No other blade would do in an anime robot. She crossed them above her head to block his strike.
Mew Mew and her cemented expression met her polar opposite face to face. "Let's dance," she said before revealing that her glowing red eyes were not just for show. After a quick charge, she blasted Zeus with eye lasers.
Zeus, slow but powerful, swung his greatsword while Mew Mew, fast and agile, dodged all his attacks and made quick, precise strikes. Alphys treated this with the same calmness as playing a video game for the millionth time, much to everyone's surprise. At one point, Mew Mew span her body in a literal cyclone of death; her head and below waist remained still in place.
Zeus swung horizontally. Mew Mew leaned back under it. Zeus drew his head back, inhaled sharply and roared a mouthful of energy downward, but Mew Mew propelled herself up on thrusters, leaping over the explosion. She somersaulted over the lion and landed with two giant chops from both swords, slicing his back and dividing the remains on his cape into three equal segments.
She flipped backward before Zeus could retaliate. He swung around to find her gone, vanished in the mist.
He did locate someone else however: that skeleton in the costume.
* * *
Barb worked alone; she always worked better alone. In fact, the battle plan accommodated to this integral fact. As the best and number one (out of one) bounty hunter in the Outerworld, she was fast, quick and able to a point where others slowed her down.
Castle Highkeep: born here, raised here, infiltrated it on countless occasions, and yet even she had not covered one hundredth of these hallways, there existing realms no one should ever travel.
Enclosed inside those six blank faces, Barb the Bounty Hunter was out of her elements. The wings on her back were there for a reason. She was born to fly, not to run, preferably outside. Any other ordinary, law-abiding monster of society would locate the front door, presumably on the ground floor. Barb opened the nearest doorway and found a nice, spacious window at the other end of a guest bedroom.
It felt great to be back in the air, no matter the weather. She found that every weather had its charm: the lovely warm sun; the cool, mysterious night; harsh snow and whipping rain. Her wings flapped slow and hard, gliding her higher and higher and higher toward the murky, grey limits. She overlooked the cannels below with the soldiers scuttling down lanes like ants and the black tsunami of the rebellion marauding from the north. Every monster for themselves.
She dropped. Her part in the plan can wait for a minute or two. She had her own worries to care about, namely her parents, and she had a few good ideas on where to look. She zoomed toward the first place, making a mental note.
In her peripheral vision, she hardly noticed what passed as an extraordinarily fat raindrop, not falling like a silent shooting star, but spinning with a swirl as it cut the air. It struck her wing and sliced the skin with an icy, tearing shriek. Barb recoiled to breath-taking pain, her vision became lost in a death spin as she began to lose altitude. A knife was lodged in her wing and every attempt to flex it was met with instantaneous, torturous agony. Desperately, she tried to stay airborne with the use of her one good wing to little result, barely altering her crash landing.
The ground drew closer and closer, those roofs nipping past on her heels until she scraped across a flat, rain-slicked cement platform. She tumbled side over side across the roof and rolled over the end. She latched to the corner with one hand and held on. Normally, in an event such as this, she would rely on her wings for support. She flexed them on impulse. The resulting pain nearly made her let go.
The ninety foot drop lay below. Heights never frightened Barb, but this drop did. She glanced up. A figure stood above. Barb was about to ask for help until she recognised his face and he stomped on her fingers.
Barb fell the distance to the ground, attempting to tackle her speed with her one working wing. She landed with a roll, wracking her bad wing some more. Her assailant jumped from the roof and scraped down the wall in a blur of sparks, coming to a stop before her.
Dom the train chef did not need to sharpen his knife, the wall did it for him. "You owe me a million smackers," as he said that, he gestured at Barb with the cutting tool in one hand and a spatula in the other.
The deer chef still donned his apron, complete with matching grease stains. In every pocket, nook and cranny, he carried his working tools: forks, knives, utensils, pots and pans. The repercussions to his payslip did not matter anymore.
"You? You don't strike me as the Empire's number one fan…" Barb's words could not mask her discomfort. She found her footing and rose, remaining hunched. "Why side with them?"
The answer was written clear on Dom's wide nose. "To finish our business," he answered. "You made me look quite the idiot back on that patch of land, you know that?" The memory was not fond. "Seriously, t
he retrieval crew laughed their guts out all the way back. All. The. Way. With me standing right there next to them."
"It's your own fault," Barb said back, attempting to stand straight only to revert to her arched back. Her fingers brushed against the handle and brought about pulverising agony. "None of that would've happened had you stayed in the kitchen like a good boy."
"It wouldn't have happened had you not have been such a persistent bat."
Dom charged with the knife. Barb blocked with her forearm and wrestled the train chef. A few tranquiliser darts from her wrist mounted gun went off into the sky. Dom pushed down harder, tightening the strain on the damaged wing. The blade drew closer to Barb's fine features. With a flick of her wrist, a smoke pellet dropped from her belt and burst on the ground in an engulfing cloud.
The acting force against Dom's arm vanished and the blade sliced at the thick cloud. Blinded, but Barb's clicking high-heels and sloshing puddles gave her away; her usual stealthy methods abandoned. Dom gave chase and exited the smokescreen as Barb aimed her wrist high and attempted to glide away with a grappling hook. Dom tossed his knife and severed the wire, plummeting the bounty hunter several dozen feet into a couple overflowing cans of garbage.
Apple cores, orange skins and table scraps spilled onto the ground and onto Barb. She got up, picking a banana peel off her black hair, as Dom made his approach.
She bared her teeth, then bared her magic. Barb struck the ground and Dom the chef moved out the way as a giant fang knifed out the ground, nearly piercing his foot.
* * *
The taller of the two skeletons held himself in high regard as he belted out his command. "Hold, fiend! I, the great Papyrus, will elect to grant you mercy in exchange for your immediate surrender. How do you respond?"
Zeus retorted with a growl.
"Your defence has been noted. I bet you have encountered much," Papyrus said. "But I bet my best bone you haven't encountered anything like my previously fabled, now legendary" – he posed in a dramatic fashion – "blue attack!"