Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Monster Under The Bed

Diana had a problem.

Like many a six-year-old, she was absolutely convinced that there was a monster under her bed. It was probably there right now, thinking about the best way to eat her. She bet it had big eyes and sharp teeth and maybe a spiky tail. It might even breathe fire.

But normally, she wouldn’t have been worried. When her big sister was around, she was safe. Everyone knew that the monsters under the bed never came out if there were big kids or grown ups around. If only Diana was bigger, she’d be okay. But she was small and not scary at all, not like Averia.

Her big sister was away on camp, so she was on her own in their room. It was the middle of the night, and the lights were off. A cloud covered the moon, and her whole room went dark. A quiet rustle came from under the bed. She pulled her blanket up to her chin.

It was there – the monster was right there under her bed.

The door was on the other side of the room. During the day, it didn’t seem far at all. But right now, it seemed even farther than the moon.

No, she couldn’t let herself get scared. She had to be a big girl. If she acted like a big girl, then maybe the monster would go away. Gathering all of her courage – and grabbing her plush toy, Mr Snaggles, for protection – she climbed out of bed.

“Hello…” Diana said, peering into the darkness under her bed. “Is there anyone there?”

Live Trigger time! Choose what happens next!

Which scenario do you want to see?

A) Diana goes to her parents (go to chapter 2)
B) Diana offers the monster some chocolate (go to chapter 3)
C) Diana calls for help (go to chapter 4)
D) Diana goes to her Aunt Vanille (go to chapter 5)
E) Diana goes back to sleep (go to chapter 6)
F) Diana gets a little help from someone cute and cuddly (go to chapter 7)

Make your decision now!

Chapter Text

Note: If you haven’t read Chapter 1, go there now. You need to read Chapter 1 first.

Option A – Diana goes to her parents

Something moved under the bed. Diana didn’t have to think twice. It had to be some kind of killer monster from another dimension. She turned tail and ran out of her room, screaming at the top of her lungs.

“There’s a monster under my bed!” Diana hurled herself at her parents’ bedroom door. It slammed open. “Help, help! I saw a monster under my bed! It’s going to eat me!”

Diana was so worried about the monster – which had to be right behind her – that she didn’t even notice several important details:

1. Her parents weren’t completely under their blanket
2. Her parents weren’t wearing all of their clothes
3. Both her parents had their hands shoved down each other’s panties
4. The weird noises she’d heard on the way in had absolutely nothing to do with the terrifying inter-dimensional, child-eating monster that had chased her down the corridor and everything to do with what her parents had been doing before she’d barged in – and what they’d been doing was each other

“Oh.” Fang tried to remove her hand from Lightning’s panties without drawing too much attention. She and Lightning really needed to double check that they’d locked the door before getting intimate. “Could you say that again?”

“There’s a monster under my bed!” Diana waved her arms around frantically. “It’s got wings and claws and teeth and like five tails! It chased me all the way down the corridor, and I would have died for sure if it caught me!”

“Okay…” Fang’s brain still hadn’t kicked into gear yet. “A monster? What do you want me to do?”

“You have to get rid of it!” Diana wailed. “Otherwise, it’ll eat me!”

Fang and Lightning shared a look. If they ever – ever – wanted to have sex, then their only option was to troop over to Diana’s room and deal with the resident monster. The fact that it was completely imaginary was beside the point. In Diana’s mind, it had attacked her, and so it needed to die. Horribly.

“All right.” Fang sighed. “I’ll go get it.”

“Thanks, mommy!” Diana made to leave the room and then paused, peeking fearfully around the corner. “I think it’s out there waiting for me.”

Fang took a deep, deep breath. The things she did for her children. “You better be completely naked when I get back,” she muttered to Lightning.

The pink-haired woman’s lips twitched. “Every monster slayer needs a reward. Don’t take too long.”

The monster killing took precisely ten minutes. Fang made a big show of jabbing her spear into the shadows under Diana’s bed while threatening the monster with horrible, horrible doom if it laid so much as a claw on Diana. Satisfied that the monster had been dealt with, Diana went back to bed, and Fang went back to Lightning.

Problem solved.

No. Not even close.

“Mommy!” Diana screamed as she threw herself threw her parents’ bedroom door – Fang had forgotten all about locking it after seeing Lightning waiting for her on top of the sheets, naked and more than ready. “The monster must have had friends! There’s another one, and it’s even scarier!”

Fang wasn’t sure whether to thank the Maker for ensuring that she and Lightning were too tangled up in their blanket for Diana to really see anything, or curse him for giving them all of ten minutes before Diana had come running back.

“Let me guess,” Fang said. “You want me to go kill this monster too?”

Diana nodded firmly. “It has to die, mommy. You don’t want me to get eaten, do you?”

“No, of course not.” Fang shared a look of pure frustration with Lightning. She’d been so close. “Although I wouldn’t mind getting eaten a little bit.”

Once again, Fang went forth to do battle against the monster under Diana’s bed. And once more, she was victorious.

For about ten minutes.

“Mommy!” Diana wailed, bounding into her parents’ bedroom. “Help!”

After another two hours of this – and six more trips to Diana’s room – Fang had had enough. She loved her daughter to bits, but what she really wanted to do right now was go and have lots of crazy sex with her wife. That wasn’t too much to ask, was it?

Diana wanted her monster dead at any cost. This time, Fang would oblige her. She grabbed her spear and stomped into Diana’s room.

“Is the monster still under your bed?”

“I think so.” Diana looked. “It’s right there! Kill it, mommy! Kill it!”

“Fine.” Fang lifted her spear. “We’ll make an example out of him. The other monsters will be too scared to ever bother you again.”

And that was when Fang lost it. Two hours of pent up frustration poured out of her as she drove her spear right through Diana’s bed and into the monster-infested darkness below.

“Die, monster!” Fang screamed. “Die!”

Stab. Stab. Stab. Stab… stab, stab, stab – stab, stab.

Fang was vaguely aware of Lightning stopping at the door and staring, but her whole being was focused on the cause of her frustration. The monster under the bed had to die.

“Keep going, mommy,” Diana cried. “I think it might still be alive!”

Several minutes – and many stabs later – and both Fang and Diana agreed that the monster was dead. More to the point, it had died so horrifically that no other monsters would ever come back.

“There.” Fang leaned on her spear. “All done.” She turned to Lightning. “Now, we can finally go back to our room and… sleep.” And by sleep, she meant: have as much awesome sex as possible before collapsing of exhaustion.

“But, mommy, where am I going to sleep?” Diana tilted her head to one side. “I don’t want to sleep in Averia’s bed if she isn’t there, and my bed is all broken.”

And that was how Diana ended up sleeping in her parents’ bed. The little girl claimed the middle of the bed for herself then promptly fell asleep in about five seconds. That left her sexually frustrated parents with plenty of time to whisper over the top of her head.

“Please let this be the last time this ever happens.” Fang grit her teeth. “Otherwise I might end up stabbing myself as well.”

“You know,” Lightning murmured. “I think we handled this wrong.”

“What do you mean? We already tried explaining to Diana that there aren’t any real monsters under her bed, but that imagination of hers can get out of control.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Lightning chuckled. “Next time, we should just cut the legs off her bed. That way there won’t be an under the bed for the monsters to come from.”

Fang took a deep breath and fought the urge to scream. “All right. Next time, we’ll do that.”

Chapter Text

Note: If you haven’t read Chapter 1, go there now. You need to read Chapter 1 first.

Option B – Diana offers the monster some chocolate

Tim’Gargnakcthutik – better known to his friend as Timmy – was a friendly monster. He was also a very young monster, being a mere one thousand years old.

He was a member of a dimension-hopping race of protoplasmic horrors capable of taking on whatever shape or form they wanted. It was a useful ability, but it had gotten his people into a lot of trouble over the years. Most of the races they encountered on their travels took one look at them and ran for the hills – only to come back with stakes and pitchforks. In fact, he’d just come from a dimension where the resident wildlife had dropped some kind of thermonuclear weapon on him.

It wasn’t fair. Sure, he might have looked a little different, but he wasn’t a mean dimension-hopping, protoplasmic horror. He helped his parents look after his siblings – all three thousand of them – and he always handed in his exploration reports on time. He was just another horror trying to make a living in a multiverse that didn’t take too kindly to people who looked different.

His inter-dimensional portal had opened in the shadows, underneath some kind of wooden structure. There also appeared to be some kind of squishy life form staring at him.

“Are you a monster?” Timmy didn’t understand what the words meant. His race had a keen sense of hearing, but they usually communicated by waving around their tentacles and transforming parts of their body.

Careful not to push over the little squishy thing, he slithered out of the shadows, flattening his body so he could fit. He expanded his body back to its usual size, and took a look around. He was in the middle of some kind of room.

On the upside, the squishy thing – which had to be some kind of native life form – hadn’t run screaming in the other direction. That was a definite improvement. Timmy’s body was a nest of writhing shadows punctuated by dozens of eyes and jagged teeth, but the life form in front of him looked more curious than afraid.

“You look awesome.” The little squishy thing reached out to touch him. Timmy decided to permit the contact. His advanced immune system could screen out any pathogens, and he didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot. The squishy thing giggled. “Cool.”

Timmy focused seven of his eyes on the little thing. It was very soft, much softer than something of his species. Another pair of his eyes focused on the fluffy thing in the life form’s arms. Was that some kind of toy, or perhaps it was a religious icon? In a bid to communicate, he decided to alter his shape to try and match the fluffy thing.

The life form let out a squeal of delight and clapped its hands. “Awesome! Do it again! Do it again!”

The squishy little thing was jumping up and down. Transforming must have made it happy. So Timmy did it again. This was much better than having a nuclear weapon dropped on his head.

The life form’s mouth curved upward, and it reached into its pocket to hand him something. It appeared to be food of some kind. “Want some of my candy?”

It would have been rude to refuse an offering, and it wasn’t like Timmy could be poisoned. He used a tentacle to lift the food to his mouth. The brown bar was the most delicious thing he’d ever eaten. He gave a low trill of pleasure, and his body flashed through a dozen different colours.

“You must really like chocolate.” The life form giggled and produced more of the food. “Want some more?”

Timmy trilled again. This dimension was awesome.

X X X

Lightning was sure she was just being paranoid, but she wanted to check on Diana one more time before she went to bed. As she got closer, she could hear Diana’s voice. She smiled. Her daughter must have made another imaginary friend. But then there was a reply, a trilling, humming, and whistling reply.

In a flash of movement, Lightning threw Diana’s door open – and then froze. Her daughter was playing with a… a thing that seemed to be all shadows, teeth, and eyes. Before Lightning’s eyes, it transformed into a giant version of Diana’s plush toy.

What… the… hell…

Diana seemed absolutely delighted. The little girl had her arms thrown around the… thing’s neck as it chewed on what appeared to be a chocolate bar.

“Look what I found under my bed, mom! Isn’t he awesome?” Diana giggled as the thing threw her up into the air and then caught her. “Can we keep him, mom? Please!”

X X X

Averia came home from camp to find out that her younger sister had acquired what was both the coolest and scariest pet in the entire world.

As for Chirpy, the chocobo was not pleased. An overly cute hamster was more than enough competition. He did not need some dimension-hopping, protoplasmic horror on top of that. Then again, Timmy wasn’t all bad – he really came in handy during Halloween.

Chapter Text

Note: If you haven’t read Chapter 1, go there now. You need to read Chapter 1 first.

Option C – Diana calls for help

There was something under the bed, something with eyes and teeth and claws. Diana didn’t even have time to scream before it lunged at her. She tumbled back and scrambled for the door, but the monster beat her to it. It was big – even bigger than her Uncle Snow – and it looked like a scarecrow with swords for hands and knives for teeth.

“Help!” Diana shouted, as loud as she could. “Help!”

The monster stepped forward, and she stepped back until there was nowhere else to go. She could hear her parents running down the corridor, but the monster was right there and –

The monster froze. It wasn’t looking at her anymore. It was looking at the window behind her. A low, rumbling growl rattled the window. Diana knew that growl! It was Mr Snaggles – the real one! That’s right – her mommy and her Aunt Vanille had been doing tests to see how long her mommy could summon Mr Snaggles for.

Diana had played with Bahamut all afternoon, and then the Eidolon had gone to sleep in the backyard. He must have heard her and come to save her!

X X X

The instant that he heard Diana scream, Bahamut was up on his feet. The mighty Eidolon would never allow harm to come to one of Fang’s children, especially not his number one fan.

He peered into the window and growled. There was some kind of monster in Diana’s bedroom. The monster met his gaze and froze. Good – it should be afraid. With a great roar, Bahamut smashed one claw through the side of the house. He grabbed the monster and then slammed it into the ground.

The monster hissed, and Bahamut lifted up one foot and stomped down – hard. Twice. As the monster lay on the ground twitching, the Eidolon drew back his head and then unleashed a devastating blast of energy. By the time he was done, there was nothing more than a big, smoking crater.

Monsters would think twice now before going after Diana.

“You’re the best!” Diana shouted, waving at him through the hole in her wall. “Thank you, Mr Snaggles!”

Bahamut struck a suitably heroic posed and basked in the adulation. He could hold this over Odin for years! Yep, Bahamut thought as Lightning and Fang rushed into the room and threw their arms around Diana, he was the greatest Eidolon ever.

“Thanks,” Fang said. “I mean it.”

Bahamut nodded at his summoner.

“But did you have to make such a big hole in the side of the –”

Snap.

Bahamut and Fang both twitched. That was the sound of something loadbearing breaking in two. There was a split-second pause, and then half the house came down in a shower of bricks, plaster, and timber.

Safely tucked in her parents’ arms, Diana cheered. “Can we do that again? That was fun.”

Bahamut eyed the damage and the murderous look on Lightning’s face. Hmmm… what to do? Ah, that’s right – he had a way out of this. As Lightning got up to start yelling about all the property damage, Bahamut let himself disappear. He’d done his good deed for the day, and if Lightning asked, he could always claim that he’d already stayed as long as he could.

“Bye, Mr Snaggles!” Diana waved as he disappeared. “Thanks for killing my monster!”

Chapter Text

Note: If you haven’t read Chapter 1, go there now. You need to read Chapter 1 first.

Option D – Diana goes to her Aunt Vanille

In the darkness underneath Diana’s bed, something moved. She took a slow step back and then another. It had to be a monster, or maybe ten monsters – no, it was a hundred monsters – all of them just waiting for her to turn around so they could jump out from under the bed and eat her.

Careful to keep her eyes on her bed at all times, Diana made her way over to her door. She needed to get help, but from who? Her parents were probably asleep, and she didn’t want to disturb them. They were really tried – they’d gone straight to bed after reading her a story.

Wait… there was her Aunt Vanille! Her aunt was sleeping over because she was testing how long her mommy could summon Bahamut for. Her aunt would help her – she had to, Diana was her favourite minion.

Diana waited until she was out of her room before she turned and sprinted down the corridor toward the guest room where her Aunt Vanille always slept when she stayed over. She burst through the door and jumped onto her aunt.

“Help! You have to help me!”

Vanille gasped and flailed as something jumped onto her stomach. She grabbed at the thing to try and pull it off her.

“Stop!” Diana waved her arms around. “It’s me, Aunt Vanille! It’s me.”

“Oh. It’s you.” Vanille sat up, rubbing her eyes as she flicked on her bedside lamp and looked at the little girl on her lap. “Do you normally run into people’s bedrooms and jump on them?”

“No…” Diana fidgeted beneath her aunt’s stare. She didn’t always jump on people… “Maybe… a little… okay, sometimes. But that’s not important! You have to help me!”

“Help you? With what?” Vanille yawned. It was a little after midnight. “Did you break something?”

“No!” Diana huffed. She was a little clumsy sometimes, but this was different. This was super, super serious! “There’s an army of monsters under my bed, and they’re going to kill me and eat me. You have to help me.”

“What about your parents?”

“They were really tired. Remember, they went to their room right after reading me a story. I don’t want to wake them up.”

“Tired?” Vanille snickered. Well, Fang and Lightning might be tired now, but that definitely wasn’t why they’d run to their bedroom after reading Diana her story. “Well, I guess I can help you. All right, let’s go.”

Diana led Vanille back to her bedroom, pausing at the door just in case the monsters were setting up an ambush. “It looks okay. They must have gone away since they knew you were coming.”

“I am kind of awesome that way.” Vanille yawned. “Okay, let’s take a look under there.”

They both took a good look under the bed with the lights on. There didn’t seem to be anything under there, but Diana knew better. The monsters probably had some kind of inter-dimensional portal or something that opened up under her bed. Once her Aunt Vanille was gone, they’d open it up again and get her.

“There don’t seem to be any monsters under there.”

“There were some monsters! I saw them!”

“Okay. How about we put a trap there, in case they come back?”

“A trap?” Diana nodded eagerly. Her Aunt Vanille was good at making traps.

“Yep. I’ll just go get it from my room –” Vanille turned to leave only to stop as Diana latched onto her like a monkey. “Or you could come with me.”

Five minutes later, they were back with a round device about the size of a dinner plate.

“What’s that?” Diana asked. “A landmine?”

“Uh… no. A landmine would blow you up too.” Vanille pursed her lips. “It’s actually something I made when I was younger. You see, I used to think there were monsters under my bed too, so I made this to catch them.”

“What does it do?”

“Well, it’s supposed to stop things teleporting. If someone does teleport near it, it will electrocute them.”

“So if a monster tries to get me…”

“It’ll get zapped, and you can get away.”

“Cool.” Diana wrapped her arms around her Aunt Vanille. “Thanks, Aunt Vanille.”

“No problem.” Vanille yawned. “Just wake me up if anything happens.”

X X X

As a matter of fact, something did happen. Diana woke Vanille up two hours later, raving about the monster Vanille’s device had caught.

“Well, I’ll be.” Vanille brandished her binding rod at the unconscious… thing under Diana’s bed. “Go get your parents, Diana. Tell them there really was a monster under your bed.”

Chapter Text

Note: If you haven’t read Chapter 1, go there now. You need to read Chapter 1 first.

Option E – Diana goes back to sleep

Diana looked under her bed and then breathed a sigh of relief. There was nothing there except for an old candy wrapper. She giggled. Maybe Averia was right – maybe there were no monsters under her bed. It was probably all part of her imagination.

Then she heard a creak come from the closet. Oh no! Averia hadn’t said anything about there being no monsters inside her closet. Diana jumped back into bed and tugged her blanket closer. The closet was between her and door. If there was a monster in it, she was trapped. What would she do? What would –

“Hey, kiddo.” Fang opened the door and grinned. “Are you still awake?”

Diana jumped out of bed and grabbed onto her mother’s leg. “There’s a monster in the closet! I heard it! It has to be at least ten feet tall! I bet it can shoot laser beams out of its eyes!”

Fang pried Diana off her leg. “Diana, there are no monsters under your bed, in your closet, or anywhere else in your room. Here, I’ll show you.”

Together they looked through the closet and under the bed. They didn’t find any monsters. But Diana still didn’t feel safe. Her mommy was really tough. The monsters were probably just hiding until she went away. Once her mommy was gone, they’d come back and get her for sure.

“Diana, do you really think any monster would be stupid enough to try and get you?” Fang patted her on the back. “Your mom and I are right down the corridor, and we’re way scarier than any monster.”

“I guess.” Diana poked the shadows under her bed with the stick she’d brought home from school.

“Are you okay to sleep here tonight?”

Diana nodded firmly. Now that she thought about it, it wouldn’t be very smart for a monster to try and get her. If something happened to her, her parents would definitely go on a rampage. She giggled. The monsters would be the ones who ended up scared. “I think so. Good night, mommy.”

Diana went back to sleep. There were no monsters under her bed or in the closet. But in her dreams, she met a friendly monster named Timmy. He was all weird looking, but he was nice, and he came from another dimension. He also liked chocolate.

What if the monsters were just people from another world trying to explore the multiverse?

Chapter Text

Note: If you haven’t read Chapter 1, go there now. You need to read Chapter 1 first.

Option F – Diana gets a little help from someone cute and cuddly

Diana was fast asleep, but Mr Cuddles was wide-awake. The little girl had finally managed to fall asleep after being reassured by her parents that there was no such thing as monsters under her bed. But Mr Cuddles knew better. Animals were gifted with a sixth sense when it came to such matters, and he wasn’t about to let anything happen to Diana.

A quiet rustle came from under the bed, and Mr Cuddles hopped off Diana’s pillow and onto the ground. His keen eyes peered into the darkness under the bed. There, half-hidden by the shadows, was a swirling mass of crimson energy. At the centre of it were two, jet-black eyes.

Mr Cuddles bared his teeth. He’d never encountered this particular kind of monster before. But as a hamster, it was his sworn duty to protect Diana from it. The monster reached out with one, blood-red, energy tentacle. Mr Cuddles hopped onto the limb and bit down. Hard. The monster hissed, and the hamster raced up its tentacle and poked it in first one eye and then the other.

Go back to your own dimension! Mr Cuddles shook one little fist and then went for the monster’s throat. Or I’ll bite you some more!

The monster retreated deeper into the shadows and then vanished, never to return. Mr Cuddles took a few moments to make sure it was really gone and then clambered back into bed beside Diana.

It was tough being a hamster sometimes – not only did he have his duties as a class pet but he also had to fight off monster invasions on a regular basis. That uppity chocobo had it easy compared to him.

At least Diana’s room only had one monster to worry about. Mr Cuddles sighed. Yuffie’s room had been absolutely infested with monsters. He’d been up all night! Oh well. He yawned. Maybe he and Diana could go to the pet store tomorrow and pick up something tasty to eat.