Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Luz Noceda exited the gates of the town with her Palisman Stringbean in tow, the suburban streets of Gravesfield giving way for the short road leading to the many districts before her. With a motion, she brushed her short brown hair aside and gazed upon the place. Given she spends a large part of her time in a alternate reality where wizards and odd creatures built an unstable society on top of a deceased monster, you’d think nothing could amaze her anymore. Yet, as she walked further and stared at the many different styles and looks of the  Luz couldn’t resist being somewhat mesmerized by the sight of these wildly different landscapes lying before her, smushed together so tightly that urban skyscrapers and colorful suburbs could segue into snowy hills and spread-out fields almost naturally. Almost.

‘Enjoying the scenery?’

The human witch turned around when a youthful voice posed that question. Before her stood a small humanoid with tan-yellow skin, bushy white hair and eyebrows, a small pointy nose and a large blue blotch on the left-side of their face clad in a half-blue, half-grey sort of robe with a dark purple nightcap on their head, staring up at her with two expecting scarlet eyes and a big smile.

Luz happily returned the Collector’s smile: ‘Oh, certainly. To be honest, when I first heard of this Nexus thing I imagined a mixed reality like – sort of if Suda51 merged Gravesfield with a Picasso painting and then sent the Boiling Isles on a crash course with it. Not that these stylized city blocks don’t please me, but I expected a little more…pizazz.’

The Collector pouted grumpily before snapping his fingers and causing a spritz of confetti to materialize over Luz’ head.

‘Huzzah,’ they flatly muttered.

Their taller companion’s brief look of surprise melted into an amused laugh. As she crouched down to hug the Collector, she chuckled: ‘I am happy to be here, buddy. Trust me, by the time Frisk and I meet I’ll be warmed up to this already.’

As she said this, someone approached with the sudden, echoing ring of a bell. The two looked to see a tall, slender young man walk up to them. He wore a white shirt, green pants and a green tie bearing a strange logo. Two blood-red eyes peered at them beneath an incredibly long mop of jet-black hair. As he approached, a subtle aura of power and mystique could be felt emanating from his very being.

Izuru Kamukura, the Ultimate Ultimate, the Grim Reaper himself.

‘Collector,’ he stated in a deep voice, flashing a small smirk at the person in question. In response, the Collector burst loose from Luz’ embrace and ran up to Izuru to give him a hug of his own.

As Luz got back on her feet, she offered a handshake. ‘Hi, my name is Luz. You’re Collector’s associate, right?’

‘More or less,’ the man answered as he accepted the handshake. Despite the paleness of his skin and visible frailness of his fingers, his grip was firm and strong. ‘I’d call us work associates. Izuru Kamukura, pleased to meet you.’

‘Work associates?’

The Collector eagerly nodded before loosening his clutch on Izuru’s long legs and giving the guy a ‘go ahead’ gesture. With a mildly annoyed sigh, Kamukura closed his eyes and lifted his arms as his black hair started flaring up and his body was wrapped in a red aura. As Luz watched in wonder, his head was suddenly covered by a dark black hood attached to an equally dark black cape with a pointy collar and a red rim. Izuru brought his hands closer together to let a long black staff materialize in his hands, a big metal blade growing out of the far side of it.

Suddenly, the human witch realized she has seen this kind of image on countless illustrations alongside War, Conquest and Weird Al Yankovic. She felt the color drain from her face as she realized she was staring at-

‘Death,’ Izuru interrupted the writer. ‘And I don’t mean it metaphorically, or rhetorically, or poetically, or theoretically, or any other fancy way. I am the Grim Reaper, straight. UP.’

Luz just meekly nodded, trying to find her voice back. This was the first surprise, blowing her expectations for the Nexus out of the water before even meeting the pen pal that lived here in the first place, and it left her with no clear idea of what would be next. It was exciting, yet a little scary – just like her first day at Eda’s.

Then something hit her. ‘So, by work associates you mean…’

‘Oh, nothing concerning,’ the Collector reassured. ‘Turns out the celestial order is pretty much a glorified teacher’s lounge. Calm air, spacious, the worst part is the paperwork.’

‘At least, once Zeus was fired for sexual harassment,’ Kamukura grumbled.

‘But yeah, it’s pretty neat. I can’t tell you too much, but let’s just say that during the soul trek between my departure and your last birthday I wound up walking into Izuru one day.’

‘I was just cleaning up after the latest incident between Task Force 141 and the Konni Group: heaven, hell, heaven, heaven, hell, purgatory, hell, hell, hell, heaven, purgatory…I was contemplating to ask for a pay raise when suddenly this little guy popped in and asked me what I was doing with the souls of the deceased.’

‘Turns out he’s the Reaper! Then I told him I am a celestial being, spawned in some fun stuff and he promptly dragged me to his boss to ask for clarification.’

‘I don’t call turning the rubble of bombed buildings into psychedelic rubber bananas ‘fun’. I asked the Higher Management for clarification and suddenly there’s Archivists and Collectors and that kind of shit.’

Luz hesitatingly asked: ‘And the higher management is…’

‘The gods.’

‘…Okay, continue.’

And the Collector continued: ‘So, turns out after the Titan finally passed on there was a hole in the bureaucracy. Now what do we do, we have no representation for the Demon Realm!!! King is too young, everyone else is already occupied and ain’t no way Lucifer is gonna make it back up here. TLDR; say hello to your new God…-like deity.’

Then Izuru spoke: ‘So we had an impromptu welcome party: Yahweh provided the music, Allah wrote a speech, and Shiva did some rapid decoration, it was great.’

‘They all exist?!’

‘If there’s a religion around it, it probably exists,’ Kamukura confirmed. ‘That’s about all I can tell you to justify the fact I get a paycheck, everything else is trade secret.’

Luz struggled to wrap her head around all these revelations, taking a moment to let it all click into place in her head. The Collector just hooked their reality onto a multiverse. Doing so was a collaborative effort with the Grim Reaper from said multiverse. They met while he was reaping souls from a warzone. He works for many gods and deities in what amounts to a divine version of Community or The Office. Papa Titan used to be in there, but now the Collector is.

‘So every time I sent a letter to Frisk, I was mailing to another universe,’ she rationalized out loud. ‘Which would basically be no different than sending letters to and from the Boiling Isles. And the Titan was more or less the Demon Realm’s god but now…okay, fanfic logic, I can make sense of this. Neat!’

Izuru smiled appreciatively. This was a much more positive reaction than expected. The last person he let in on this asked so many questions they literally blew up their own head.

Luz smiled as well, her curiosity now sparked intensely. ‘So, mister mishmash of divinity, what mishmash did my world just end up in?’

The Nexus, as it turns out, was a realm created by forging six (and now seven) completely separate worlds together into one hub connected by a sprawling road. The circumstances behind the sudden joining of these worlds has remained a mystery for the ages beyond ‘so these characters can bounce off of each other for your entertainment’, but after settling into this new coexistence the inhabitants have collectively decided to drop the subject and live as one going forward. The following worlds have been joined together, one more canon-compliantly than the other:

Danganronpa (The Fan Series): The world of the visual novels, where hope and despair decide all. The first world to be inducted to the Nexus, it’s society had previously been torn asunder by the despair-obsessed sociopath known as Junko Enoshima. Her final plan, Killing Games where people possessing Ultimate Talents were forced in a monitored kill-or-be-killed situation, resulted in her own death and the survivors growing the resolve to fix the damages she’s caused to the world. By the time it became the first world to join the Nexus, her former manservant Izuru Kamukura had taken up the mantle of Death to atone for his actions under Junko’s command. Nearly every character has been resurrected by the merge barring the Monokubs. Junko is currently MIA.

My Hero Academia: The world of the manga and anime, where superheroes are just as flawed and PR-valuing as the normal people. The school of U.A. educates and molds the next generation of heroes, most prominently the colorful cast attending Class 1-A. Initially just a cute story about a formerly powerless kid becoming the world’s number one hero, the arcs have over time grown darker and more impactful, with mass death counts among the cast and massive changes to both superhero society and the normal world…so thank fuck for the Nexus hitting the reset button all the way to cute superhero antics. The characters do remember the now-undone events, however, and work to avoid things going downhill as hard as it had done previously.

RWBY: The world of the acclaimed web animation, where fairytales turn into badasses wielding technologically advanced weaponry. The fallout between the ancient lovers Ozma and Salem spawned an endless war between the Huntsmen, a collection of young heroes fighting for the side of good under Ozma’s many reincarnations, and the Grimm, a horde of dark emotion-eating monsters rampaging in the name of evil under Salem, cursed with immortality and indestructability by the Gods of Light and Darkness and now hell-bent on omnicide as the biggest murder-suicide in history. Again, the Nexus hit the reset button hard with this world when it came to death and destruction and the characters are resolute in making sure it doesn’t happen again.

Hazbin Hotel: The world of the web animation turned Prime Original musical comedy, taking place in Hell itself. Charlie Morningstar, daughter of Lucifer himself, seeks to end the annual killings caused by Hell’s overpopulation by setting up a hotel where sinners can earn their redemption in spite of scrutiny from both Heaven and Hell pushing her efforts back. Some time after the Nexus was initially formed the hotel’s financial backer Alastor had found his way back to the mortal coil, forcing the Gods to let the Hotel crew access the living world as well to try and keep him in check. Also, Izuru has the Exorcists taken care of.

Somewhere in the fluffy clouds of heaven, a big chest shook and rumbled as the faint screams of frustration belonging to Adam, Lute and their kin struggled to extend beyond the massive lock keeping them trapped inside.

Ask Frisk and Company: The world of Undertale, if Frisk did a pacifist route that broke the cycle of restarting and maintained a fourth wall-shattering askblog about their subsequent adventures. It incorporates many fan favorite concepts (primarily ships and certain headcanon voices) as well as bringing in newer ideas (primarily OCs and bridging a whole multiverse with similar works of Undertale fiction). Shortly after Izuru and the Collector met, they tested the waters of bringing in the latter’s world by setting up a pen pal connection between Luz and Frisk. If you know both of them, you can guess it worked.

Hellsing Ultimate Abridged: The world of Hellsing Ultimate, but from a more darkly comedic angle. Alucard is the current form of the original Count of Wallachia, a trollish and violence-loving vampire working for the Hellsing organization to subdue other, more villainous vampires. In his efforts he is (reluctantly) supported by his boss (and alleged love interest) Integra Hellsing, her butler Walter (until his betrayal), his little sidekick Police Girl (real name Seras Victoria) and French mercenary Pip Bernadotte (her boyfriend). He still bears Schrodinger’s powers and Millenium and Maxwell are still rotting down there, but Pip and Anderson are still around and Walter is now back on their side.

And newest among them, The Owl House: The world of brand violation in the eyes of Disney and good TV in the eyes of anyone else. Unappreciated for her creative and out-of-the-box way of life, Luz winds up accidentally stumbling into a world of magic and learns all about the Demon Realm while bunking with the rebellious Eda Clawthorne in the titular location. Mostly canon-compliant, Belos is dead and the old house in Gravesfield now bears a portal door to the Boiling Isles, but may occasionally reference MoringMark comics and the like.

‘And there’s your mishmash,’ Izuru concluded.

Luz nodded. She had been walking down the street with him and the Collector while he extolled a more condensed version of the upper paragraphs of exposition to her and was already trying to decide whether to endlessly harass her divine companions with questions about the Nexus or just find everything out for herself.

She decided to stick with the former for the moment. ‘Well, it sounds pretty exciting! So, how did people react when they heard another world came in?’

‘That depends, how did your people react to joining us?’

The human witch thought of an answer, but Collector was ahead of her: ‘They took it pretty well, all things considered. Maybe our Chibiverse escapades got them used to the idea, or Eda and Luz joining this one mobile game, but most of them were pretty open to ‘new neighbors’ from other worlds!’

‘Gee, I wonder why,’ Kamukura dryly muttered while looking at Luz, who put a hand behind her head and chuckled shyly. ‘But that’s good; it was basically the same thing here, barring a couple of buzzkills concerned about culture shock or something. Like bruh, we have the living dead up in this bitch, I think they’ll feel right at home! Sheesh…’

He then stopped in front of a large house. It was only then that his company realized they had walked quite a bit from the point where Gravesfield segued into the rest of the Nexus and were now in simpler surroundings. Grassier. Snowier. Canadian.

The Collector and the Reaper calmly watched as Luz looked around the area, calmly dragging her eyes across the scenery until she suddenly froze and focused on the imposing shape of Mt. Ebott not too far away. The realization hit her and she turned back to the others with a wide smile and sparkles in her eyes. Their response was a set of two amused smiles.

‘Hey, you did want to meet your pen pal first and foremost,’ the Collector said as they slowly levitated past Luz.

‘Knock yourself out, girl,’ Kamukura spoke as he also strolled past the human witch. ‘We still got a ton of paperwork waiting for us up there.’

He used the scythe to tear open a swirling red portal, stepped into it and vanished. The Collector waved at their human friend and vanished into the vortex as well, after which it closed itself and vanished too. Suddenly Luz was alone, standing before the Dreemurr residence.

Well, here goes, was the young lady’s optimistic thought before calmly pressing the doorbell and waiting. After a couple of seconds, the door was opened by a small child with yellowish skin, short brown hair, a blue sweater with purple lines and two seemingly-shut eyes.

Luz recognized her pen pal, sparkles returning to her eyes and smile returning to her face.

Frisk recognized their pen pal, returning the wide smile and opening their eyes to reveal even more sparkles.

The following squeals of happiness and excitement were loud enough to pierce the heavens and reach the celestial office, where Izuru and Collector briefly diverted their attention from the piles of documents that needed to be read and filled out to exchange a smile and fist bump.

Chapter Text

For a good amount of time afterwards, they proceeded to talk. And talk. And talk.

Both Luz and Frisk had been hyped over finally meeting in person after first meeting each other over apparently interdimensional mail, and now that they were in the same reality at last all bets were off; the discussion had been about friends, family, magic, books, anime, video games, favorite pie flavor, silly antics, awesome adventures, traumatic experiences and having to exorcise deranged villains from your brother figure by the time someone else decided to enter the scene.

The humans fell silent at last, perking up at the arrival of a larger figure with white fur, horns and blond hair as well as a beard around his snout. Asgore had entered the room on the phone with someone and also quieted down when he saw the room was occupied.

‘Yeah, they’re here,’ he then said to the other person on the line. ‘I’ll let them know – what? Yeah, I’ll tell them. Yeah. Okay, we’ll see you there, alright? Excellent, until then!’

He hung up and walked over to the kitchen table where the duo was sitting, smiling passively and extending a hand to Luz. ‘Good afternoon young lady, you must be Frisk’s pen pal. I am Asgore Dreemurr, it is a pleasure to meet you!’

The human girl gladly took the handshake and declared: ‘Hi, my name’s Luz! So you must be the king of the monsters, correct?’ She suddenly stood up from her seat and did a curtsy, fancily intoning ‘Your Majesty’.

Frisk giggled at both this gesture and Asgore’s humble embarrassment before the big goat turned towards them and stated: ‘Frisk, um, that was Naegi on the line, he’s got everyone set up for the meeting and they’re expecting us.’

‘Oh no, already?’ the child shouted in a panic as they quickly turned towards the clock. ‘Oh jeez, we gotta make haste! Um, does this look okay – wait, do we even have a dress code?’

‘None that I know of, but I got to have something better than this sweater! Where are my crown and armor?!’

Luz watched them panic before politely coughing and asking: ‘Maybe it’s absolutely none of my business, but what’s the meeting about?’

‘We are supposed to be gathering with the leading figures of our worlds to discuss how we’re going to approach the integration of your world into the Nexus,’ Asgore explained hurriedly as he dashed back and forth through the house cobbling together his old kingly garb. It was an amusing sight seeing the poor monster run around in a bright sweater, metallic leg armor and a purple cape wrapped around his hands.

Frisk tried in vein to properly place the tiny golden crown onto his head, the king’s constant movement causing it to constantly sag onto his forehead. ‘We’ll never get there in time,’ they said softly.

But Luz was having none of that. She patted the pocket on the side of her pants to wake up Stringbean, who had settled in there during Izuru’s exposition wave, and let them shift into staff mode before jumping on and hovering in place. ‘Get on here,’ she said to her befuddled pen pal, ‘we’ll getcha to this meeting in style!’

Within a second, the youngster had taken her place on the staff behind Luz. Asgore also decided to join, which caused the Palisman a mild but ultimately ignorable strain as she flew out of the door and took off to the skies.

None of them noticed the cartoony red periscope poking out of the lawn, watching them depart.

As they flew towards the meeting place, the many inhabitants of the Nexus were going about their days and barely if at all noticed the trio flying overhead. The human witch and her two passengers watched the varied people below them walk around and do innocuous everyday things, soundtracked only be the wind loudly blowing past their faces and through their hair…until a loud crash a few streets away, followed by loud growling and snarling.

‘Not again,’ Asgore bemoaned.

‘What’s going on?’

‘A Grimm attack,’ Frisk muttered. ‘Should we go down and help out?’

Luz had Stringbean take them down in the noise’s direction, to a tiny shop in the City of Vale where an elderly-looking shopkeeper was trembling before his store as two individuals were standing before him, locked in combat with a pack of three ferocious beasts. They were massive black monsters with white, lupine heads and white spikes protruding from their shoulders, paws, arms and backs.

There were three of them in total, but the people facing them did not look intimidated by the enemies’ larger numbers. The young lady with white hair and an even whiter dress was the first member of this standoff to move, leaping forward and swinging her silver rapier to cast a wave of fire. Two of the wolfish creatures were able to dodge the flame, but the remaining one took all of its stinging, hot pain right to the face.

With a pained, furious roar the monster stormed at the woman with its claws bared. The sharp ends of the paws smashed into the pavement an inch away from her, causing the woman to hurriedly stumble backwards. The beast slowly rose up and shook off the final remaining embers on its fur preparing to lash out at the swordswoman again, only to watch in confusion as a snowflake-shaped sigil seemed to form beneath her feet and allow her to propel a good distance away.

The other beasts grew impatient, with the smaller of the two running past its brood to get a shot at the white-clad woman. Unfortunately for it, the blond gentleman next to her barely gave it the option: he tightly gripped his double-barreled shotgun and blew a lamppost, a hydrant, a small tree, a mailbox, a nearby window and finally the monster bolting at his companion into atoms with a series of triumphant (and ear-piercing) bangs. The lady rolled her eyes at the man’s actions, but threw him a grateful smile anyway before she made her own move and used the same sigil as before to propel herself at the lupine beast and drive her rapier through its chest.

Unfortunately, the final remaining monster was bigger and stronger than its buddies and far more aggressive in the face of their failures. With a loud snarl, it got the heroes’ attention and started to slowly prowl around them. More than willing to return the beast’s hostility, the blond man reloaded his weapon and the white-haired lady flashed her rapier. Again, the girl was the first to move by sending a wave of ice out of her weapon only for the beast to leap over it quite impressively.

Upon landing, it moved quickly to slash both of its opponents with its claws. The heroes were harshly smacked onto the concrete pavement as their weapons flew out of their hands and landed just out of reach.

‘Darn,’ the woman said, quietly and refined.

‘Bastards,’ the young man shouted, loudly and harsh.

But just as the vengeful animal was about to go in for the kill, it was stopped dead in its tracks by a red trident ramming itself through its pale skull. Its yellow eyes rolled back in its head and the monster’s body slumped onto the ground, where it dissolved into nothingness. The three humans slowly got up and looked skywards as the trident returned to its rightful owner atop the Palisman staff.

‘Are you okay?’ Frisk asked as the group carefully descended and stepped back onto the ground.

The woman fully lifted herself off of the pavement, locked her light blue eyes onto the child and gave her a small reassuring smile. ‘I am fine, Frisk, thank you for asking. And thank you for the rescue, King Asgore.’

‘No prob,’ Asgore chuckled before correcting her with: ‘And just Asgore is fine.’

Luz then noticed the scar running down her left eye. ‘Yeesh, those creepy things sure did a number on you! Are you sure you’re fine?’

The lady blinked in confusion before noticing what the other was looking at and answering: ‘Oh! Oh no, I’ve had that one long before this, er…I’m sorry, have we met?’

‘Hi, I’m Luz!’ She extended her hand, which was soon reciprocated.

‘Oh right, you must be from the new world in town, ha ha! Pleased to make your acquaintance, my name is Weiss Schnee and this is-’

‘Byakuya Togami,’ her companion rudely interrupted before shaking Luz’ hand as well…with only two fingers. ‘The Ultimate Affluent Progeny, CEO of Togami Incorporated, best friend to the Ultimate Hope, blah, blah, blah you get it, I’m a big deal.’

Didn’t know Boscha had family abroad, Luz thought as she gauged from everyone else’s indifferent or mildly annoyed reactions that this was the norm with this person. The shopkeeper fortunately brought the mood back up by joyfully mumbling his eternal gratefulness to both the two humans and Asgore.

‘You’re welcome, good sir, but I’m afraid we must be off now,’ the monster king kindly spoke as he, Frisk and Luz stepped back onto Stringbean’s staff and started to take off.

The human witch calmly waved goodbye, but once they were fully airborne she turned towards her pen pal and asked: ‘How come you’ve never mentioned those things when we chatted about monsters?’

‘That’s because they aren’t,’ the child exclaimed. ‘Grimm are vastly different from what we define as monsters; they originated from these parts and practically spread like wildfire across the Nexus, targeting anything with a pulse just to kill ‘em. The people at the meeting can probably go more in depth with it, but Grimm are practically mindless killing machines that can just pop out anywhere and terrorize the area until they’re put down.’

Luz nodded and went back to their flight, her curiosity momentarily satisfied. Of course, it immediately flared up again when she saw the imposing wall surrounding their meeting point approaching.

Once again, the red periscope went undetected as it slunk away from the scene of the battle.

The cafeteria of U.A. High School was surprisingly quiet and empty today. Yes, there were a few students scattered across the tables and the most lively classes of the school were out on patrol (or temporarily benched for being a sickening little purple perv), but Nezu had expected at least a few to huddle around him in bewilderment that their principal chose to hold this important meeting of influential figures here instead of the teacher’s lounge.

Then again, nearly all of them were incredibly lax and humble about their positions so perhaps it wouldn’t be surprising at all.

His companions didn’t give it too much thought either; most of them were just softly conversing or scoffing down a sample of the notoriously good school lunches. Lunch Rush may not show his face much outside of the kitchen (or at all – come to think of it, have any of Nezu’s colleagues ever seen the cafeteria chef without his hat and mask?), but his dishes did the talking for him and did it quite well at that.

As he was ruminating over this, the principal suddenly noticed a large, stony individual walking up to the table. Cementoss exchanged a greeting nod before curtly stating: ‘The king and ambassador of the Kingdom of Monsters are here to attend the meeting, sir, and they have brought a guest. Would you like me to guide her to the teacher’s lounge for the duration of your meeting?’

Nezu cast a questioning glance at the other people at the table, most of whom shrugged. Turning back to the teacher, he smiled and stated: ‘No need, Ishiyama, she can join the meal. This is about her world, after all.’

‘Very well, sir,’ Cementoss replied with a smile of his own as he walked off, presumably to tell the visitors. That’s what the principal thought, at least, as a moment later the three of them entered the room and sat down at the table with the others.

‘Sorry we’re late, Beowolf attack,’ Asgore explained.

‘I thought they were Grimm,’ the girl by his side whispered to Frisk, who whispered back a promise to explain the biodiversity later.

Then, Nezu rose up and addressed the group thusly: ‘Now that we’re all here, I would like to thank you all for taking the time out of your days to join this meeting regarding the latest district to join the Nexus.

Our agenda points, which we had set up in advance but I would like to repeat anyway, are as follows: first we shall discuss whom shall be sent as representatives to address the governing bodies of the Boiling Isles and Gravesfield, respectively, given one is not the other and can react quite differently requiring different strategies. Then we will let the present representative for the district-’

‘That’s you,’ Frisk whispered to Luz, who somewhat hesitantly nodded.

‘- answer any questions about her world in exchange for answering her questions about ours, as a sign of common courtesy in conjunction with making her and by extension her kin feel welcome. After that…I don’t know, actually, we should’ve hit all points by then.’

The group murmured amongst themselves, compliant with this schedule (or relieved that Nezu’s introduction was shorter than usual). Once the chatter died down again, Luz noticed both the tall pale lady and the young man across the table from her reach out and offer a handshake to her.

‘Charlie Morningstar’ she said cheerily. ‘I’ve watched your show quite a few times by now, huge fan’

‘Same,’ the human witch said while accepting the handshake until she sheepishly admitted: ‘I’ve seen the pilot and the first season but nothing else yet, I’ve been too busy. Sorry!’

Charlie laughed. ‘Oh no worries, this fic was written pre-season 2 so you’ve missed nothing.’ Then, they turned towards the young man next to her, still extending his hand.

‘Makoto Naegi,’ he said kindly. ‘Nice to meet you, Izuru called me a minute ago and told me that, judging from you diligently sitting through his exposition, my prior concerns about culture shock were unfounded.’

The human witch shook his hand, chuckling. ‘No worries, dude, after all…’

She then mimicked Izuru’s deep voice: ‘You’ve got the living dead up in this bitch, I think they’ll feel right at home!’

Makoto snorted and then laughed, followed by a few others at the table. But the merriment ceased and the meeting got back to business as the question was posed on how to approach the Boiling Isles government and Gravesfield authorities.

‘Gravesfield has a first selectman,’ Luz helpfully confirmed, ‘and he’s nowhere near Phillip in terms of being…how do I put this nicely…’

‘A deluded genocidal tyrant,’ was the blunt suggestion of the lady at the head of the lunch table, her blue eyes rolling behind her glasses.

‘…yeah, he’s definitely none of that. As long as no-one in town makes a fuss about the Nexus (and no-one has yet) I don’t think we even need to address the guy. Now the Boiling Isles government on the other hand would be quite open to meeting the people hooking their realm up to their own just because they’ve gotten chummy with the Collector, as Darius put it.’

Naegi clicked his tongue ashamedly. ‘Yeah, Izuru may technically be my subordinate but in no way is he submissive. I didn’t find out about what he and Collector had been plotting until a week prior to the merge. Are they angry?’

‘Meh,’ Luz answered as she shrugged, quirking her head sideways. ‘Darius got a little prissy on this sudden development, but the rest of the population was largely okay with it. Now, the current rule over the Isles is enacted of a council formed by a couple different people.’

To help prove her point, she took out a pencil and a leaf of paper. The people around her watched curiously as she sketched a person with round glasses, pointy ears, short hair and two scars extending from the eyes to their cheeks.

‘This is Raine,’ the girl stated. ‘They’re one of the driving forces behind the council: dedicated and steadfast, yet shy and selfless. Should be no trouble.’

‘Relatable,’ Naegi admitted. ‘We could be fast friends.’

Next was someone with a peculiar, almost amorphous haircut and a prideful, haughty expression. ‘Behold the aforementioned Darius: posh and critical, but he’s got a softer side and is only out to help people. Be professional and open about both whatever threats lurk here and how you ward them off and he’ll start to trust you, pepper in a few flattering comments and he’ll trust you just a bit faster.’

Asgore laughed: ‘That’s a shoe-in for Papyrus. He loves being nice to people as much as if not more than extolling about our bravery in the face of odds.’

A tiny, fuzzy face with big eyes and a wild mane was doodled next to it. ‘That’s Eberwolf. He’s just a cute little guy, if on the mischievous side.’

‘Then perhaps it’s best I join the party as a counterpart,’ Nezu muttered.

After that was a lady whose face was covered by some sort of masked hood with a circular top, ‘Hettie’ by name, who allegedly had regrets from being led astray by a prior ruler and wished to reform herself in the council. It was decided that she was not a priority in the scheme of things and needed no counterpart. The same was said for a few other sketches of unimportant people called Mason and Osran.

Finally, Luz put away the pencil and paper and unveiled a purple scroll which showed a high-quality picture of herself with two older women.

‘The one on the left is Lilith, she runs the museum and comes by the council to help categorize things and provide her latest historic discoveries. The one on the right is Eda, my mentor/kind of-sort of second mom who just lounges around to tease and distract Raine. They’ve been very curious to what you guys can bring to the table, so expect them to butt in at some point and not leave until you do. You guys got someone with boundless knowledge and a sense of fun to keep them busy?’

All eyes were on Naegi, but he shook his head. ‘Sorry guys, the meeting will probably be some months away and Izuru still has paperwork to do between reaping hours.’

Frisk frowned, deep in thought. Then they perked up and raised their hand triumphantly, declaring: ‘Then we can bring Sans! His brother’s already going and he knows lots of stuff, and he’s certainly fun!’

‘Excellent, it’s settled then.’ Nezu clasped his hands happily and announced the next step of the afternoon: questions and answers.

After explaining the different types of magic in her world, Luz learned of Ultimate Talents, Quirks, SOULs, Dust and vampirism. After learning of the sadder parts of her fight with Belos, the rest of the group tried their best to comfort her by trauma-dumping about their own experiences with genocidal fiends.

The Q&A session was a fair trade, all things considered.

‘And now a question that I really want answered,’ Charlie declared as she leaned in with a bold smile. ‘Are Hunter and Willow a thing yet?’

‘That depends, are Angel and Husk?’

Makoto guffawed, but sternly admonished his peer: ‘Answer for an answer, Luz.’

‘Fine~,’ the girl said, faux-pouting. ‘Hunter’s crushing hard, but he hasn’t got the guts to make a move and Willow barely notices it. Well?’

‘Angel Dust’s as flirtatious as ever, if a lot more subdued, but Husk still puts him down every time. With the amount of time Husk spends outside of the hotel up here, I think our four-armed friend is just seizing the chances he gets.’

‘Oh, because of Alastor being at large, yeah. Izuru brought that up, like, really shortly.’

‘He’s sensitive about not preventing it,’ Naegi said. ‘So he doesn’t like talking about it.’

Then, the boy with frizzy black hair and a healthy tan butted in. ‘What’s the cuisine scene over at the Boiling Isles? Asking for my folks: the harvest’s been good this year and they wanna share it with the whole world.’

‘They’re always welcome, Oscar. Your family may have to try a fairy pie or buy a box of apple blood to get a feel of the witchy way of food, but Earth foods have become rather appreciated so it’ll sell like hotcakes! Or at least enough to make a decent amount of snails.’

‘Alrighty then, I’ll message them straight away!’

‘Wait, before you do…Grimm originally came from Remnant, right? We’ve encountered a few on the way here but I’m still not entirely on the up-and-up on what they actually are.’

Oscar’s face fell at the mention of the dastardly beasts, and he awkwardly stammered trying to come up with something. However, he suddenly frowned and seemed to stare off into nowhere before shrugging, twitching and straightening his posture and refocusing on Luz. She noticed his hazel eyes had turned a thin brown before he took out a long walking cane and responded in a sophisticated tone of voice:

‘That is understandable, my dear child, for no Grimm are truly the same on a physical level. The yellow eyes, white spikes and facial areas, black skin or fur and red veins running across the white faces are the only common trait between all Grimm subspecies aside from their single-minded collective drive to kill and/or devour all human life and subtle preference for extreme emotions.’

The concerned and surprised look on the human witch’s face was brought to his attention by the pointed stares of the people behind her, causing the boy to emit an embarrassed chuckle. ‘My apologies, I’ve failed to introduce myself. The name is Professor Ozpin, former headmaster of Beacon Academy and the prior incarnation of the boy you see before you.’

The surprise faded. ‘Oh yeah,’ Luz reminisced, ‘he said you died and now live in his head or something.’

‘Sort of,’ Ozpin responded with another chuckle. ‘I believe young people like yourself would dub the situation ‘free real estate’, although the songs that infiltrate Oscar’s mindspace for extended periods of time make it quite hard on me.’

‘I get that…sort of. Anyway, please go on!’

‘I’d rather not; the risk of Mariah Carey echoing through his subconscious before December is way too big and if it starts playing now I’ll go-’

‘Um, I meant go on about the Grimm.’

‘Oh! Oh of course, my apologies: there are several different kinds of the horrid beings spread across the worlds by the dark sorceress Salem. There’s Beowolves, like Asgore mentioned and you’ve encountered, but also the wisp-like Geists, ape-like Beringels, porcine Boarbatusks, avian Nevermores and ursine…well, Ursai just to name a few.’

‘And all of them are evil and crazy?’

‘Every single Creature of Grimm inhabits no moral compass or even a soul, solely being husks of pure darkness aiming to kill whatever they lay their hands on. As you may have seen when the Beowolves were struck down, they completely dissipated in a few seconds. When a Grimm dies, it has no soul to pass onto the afterlife and so its lifeless husk can only decompose at a rapid pace.’

‘Oof, dark,’ Luz said with a shiver of fascination.

‘Quite. Even Grimm with more intelligence or independence, like the Nuckelavee for instance, bear no greater desires than to kill and destroy and will still vanish once the final blow is struck. That’s how the cookie crumbles, or in this case the Grimm, ha ha ha…’

With this joke, Ozpin proceeded to vanish himself. Oscar’s eyes dilated back to hazel and he slumped back into his prior posture, blinking drowsily and groaning. ‘Gimme a warning next time, prof,’ he whispered as he got his bearings back and turned towards Luz. ‘I hope whatever he said helped you.’

‘It cleared some things up for me, yes. But these beasts can spawn anywhere, at any given moment?’

The lady at the end of the table, Sir Integra Hellsing, took a puff of her cigar and nodded. ‘Precisely. In the streets, near your house, out on the training grounds… Hell, they could even appear right here!’

‘Possible, but unlikely,’ Nezu boasted. ‘U.A. puts even Fort Knox to shame in how many measures we’ve taken to ensure evil, mindless or not, stays out.’

‘About that, you guys did mention a lot of awful people after I opened up about Belos. Anything serious we need to look out for, or…’

‘Junko is MIA and as far as I know Mukuro is too, so Ultimate Despair is unimportant,’ Naegi stated.

‘Chara is part of the family now, so nothing on my end,’ Frisk happily confirmed, with Asgore nodding in agreement.

‘Millenium is dead and we’ve reached an uneasy truce with Iscariot,’ Integra said with a shrug. ‘And somehow despite all of the damage he causes, Alucard is not considered a big threat.’

Nezu thought it over, briefly appeared to text someone and then declared: ‘Most of our enemies are still incarcerated or in hiding.’

Oscar just shrugged.

‘And any threats from Hell or Heaven, barring Alastor, are still there,’ Charlie finished. ‘And he’s very quick on the trigger with his antics, so you’ll figure it out sooner or later.’

From behind a window, peering into the cafeteria, the red periscope shook as if it was mildly irritated how casual they were about that last subject.

‘And on your end?’

Now Luz was the one thinking over what threats were present. ‘Good question. Let’s see, Belos is dead…there’s Tibbles, but the guy is such a minor nuisance so…hm, Odalia has nothing left after the divorce…Terra and Adrian may be a bit of a pain, but Kikimora is stuck with community service… and Jacob is still in police custody for trying to catch Vee again. No, honestly the worst that could happen is some of the flora or fauna could catch you off-guard. Or the boiling rain, of course, but that’s solved by just bringing a resistant cover.’

Most of the table hummed in acknowledgement. With seemingly nothing more to add or discuss, Nezu calmly declared the meeting over and promised Naegi, Luz and Frisk that they would meet on a later date to discuss the details of their upcoming visit to the Boiling Isles’ council. As most of the group got up and left, Frisk invited Luz to go take in some sights they thought she’d like after bringing Asgore home. The human witch happily agreed, and Naegi decided to tag along since he had nothing better to do.

As that commenced, however, the red periscope that had watched the foursome take off on Stringbean decided it had seen and heard enough. With a harsh speed it vanished back underground and retracted back into the crimson lair below a hill just outside of the Nexus’ central area, where its owner had been tracking Luz from the moment she met Izuru.

Said owner pushed away the periscope’s viewing end and marched down the stairs leading from a metal platform to the polished floor to perch in his fuzzy orange chair and plot away. It would be most rude to not get this Loops person to know me, he reasoned to himself. I highly doubt two minor namedrops can paint a good picture compared to the genuine article.

With the snap of his red-tipped fingers, he summoned a tiny woman with one eye and a massive hot-pink hairdo by his side. With a few more snaps, he convinced a large, chagrined taupe cat with red wings to join as well.

‘My dear friends,’ he said in a staticky drawl, ‘it’s time I introduce myself to our new neighbors.’

As he stood up and marched to the pipes leading to the surface, the man took a short moment to adjust his little bow tie, straighten his striped red coat and don his radio-dial cane before running a comb through his poofy red hair and massive deer ears.

After all, Alastor is both a villain and a showman. Presentation is integral to both gigs, y’know.

Chapter Text

Amity had a few expectations when she decided to go to the Nexus to check on Luz. Based on how the Collector had sold the idea to everyone, she definitely expected these amounts of architectural dissonance in this mishmash of worlds shoved together. She was also happy to see her inexplicable presumption that there would be plenty of green hills around rang true.

She did not expect to get involved in a dogfight with massive, monstrous avians when flying over it all atop her Palisman, Ghost.

Two Nevermores had taken the witch into their sights and shrieked as they attempted to swat her off of the staff or clamp their beaks down on her, but Amity easily dodged every move they threw at her with some fast flying. Landing on top of a nearby roof, she reached for the belt around her waist and pulled out a jar with some type of gooey purple liquid in it.

The witch opened the lid and made a motion with her staff, causing a small pinkish circle to appear. Suddenly, the goo began to twitch before it shifted and took form as a large, vaguely humanoid being with drooping eyes and some sort of despaired wail etched upon its face. The airborne Grimm were caught off guard by their prey confidently smiling as she controlled the abomination into leaping at the beasts and punching one of them right in its bony beak.

The Nevermore recoiled from the hit, but retaliated by swiping its claws across the gooey creation in the hope of hacking its head off. Fortunately Amity was quick to move and had the abomination dodge the swipe, followed by jumping up to the winged monster and then doing an elbow drop on top of its head. A loud crack alerted the witch that her attacker was unlikely to get up again, allowing her to focus on its vengeful partner.

Seemingly incensed by its compatriot’s demise, the other Nevermore swooped in and clamped its beak around the abomination’s chest to lift it into the air. Amity made her creation punch at the beast’s head, but its grip was firm and the Nevermore managed to bite down hard enough to pierce the gooey being. With a rather disgusting splotching noise, the abomination broke in two and its remains fell onto the rooftop where they melted into purple goop. Amity tried to make another spell circle to reform her creation, but the Abomination was faster than she was and tackled her to the ground before she could. Its talon tightly planted itself onto the witch’s abdomen and pushed down hard, crushing her ribs and organs. A pained groan escaped her mouth as the witch felt something inside her squash and flatten beneath the monster’s grip and a harsh sting shot up her spine. But soon, her pained squint warped into a furious glare as she slowly wormed her staff out from beneath the foot and held it up at the screeching beast’s face.

In an instant, the wooden white cat at the end of the staff disconnected from her perch and launched herself at the Nevermore’s face with a furious, shrieking meow. Ghost tightly bit into the bony beak of the creature and rapidly swatted at every other inch of the beast’s head within reach, causing the Grimm to stumble for a moment and swat at itself with its massive wings. Its aggressive wobbling loosened the pained grip on Amity enough for her to crawl out from under the talon and get back onto her feet.

‘Ghost!’ she called out, causing the Palisman to catapult off of the Nevermore’s head and run back to her owner before resuming her staff form. The witch tried to take a ready stance and pick the fight back up, but could only manage a bent position since her abdomen still hurt from her predicament two seconds ago. No longer distracted by the feline, the giant bird was on the verge of going after the woman again before it was suddenly struck by a splash of gray-white liquid that caused the Grimm to howl out in pain as it dissolved from corrosion.

Even though they nearly ate her and she crushed one’s skull, Amity was still horrified by the acid’s effect on the horrid beast. After a moment, the downed creatures started to evaporate into tiny black embers and the person who threw the corrosive substance stepped into view, waving at Amity with a large smile.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked, cheerily. ‘You seemed to handle it with that purple guy over there, but I thought I’d drop in and help ya out!’

Amity eyed the other questioningly as she scooped the abomination goo back into its jar. This stranger had pink skin and hair, two pale yellow horns, yellow eyes atop black sclera, a white superhero mask and a bizarre suit consisting of purple and green spandex beneath a light brown coat with white fluff. ‘Thank you. Um, who are you?’

The stranger gasped and slapped her forehead. ‘Oh, sorry! I’m Mina Ashido, but most people know me as Pinky! And you must be one of the new peeps coming in from the Boiling Isles, right?’

Mina offered a handshake to the witch, who carefully accepted it. ‘Y-yes, actually. Amity Blight, nice to meet you. Um, you wouldn’t know where one ‘Frisk’ would live, huh?’

‘Ooh, that’s gonna be a long walk,’ the superheroine giggled before pointing to a suburban neighborhood quite a bit away from their current metropolitan location. ‘They live all the way at Monster Town. Need a ride? It’s not like anything’s happening on patrol.’

‘Thanks, but if I can manage whatever those things were…’ Amity said with a confident smile as she hopped back on her staff and slowly took back to the air. The young witch kindly waved goodbye before taking off to the AFAC district, leaving Mina on the rooftop yelling:

‘Drop by again soon, okay?! I wanna know what that purple stuff was!’

About half an hour later, Amity was pacing by the school building trying to find Luz. She had stopped by the Dreemurr household and gotten directions from Asgore, but at this point she had walked in so many circles that Ghost was completely tuckered out and now napping away in her arms.

Great idea Amity, she mentally grumbled at herself, walk off aimlessly in a place you’ve never been to before. It’s such an easy way to find your girlfriend.

Shaking off her self-deprecative mood, she stomped down the sidewalk and walked into the busier parts of town. It was pretty cool to see how many different types of people inhabited this place, but with a name like Monster Town it shouldn’t be surprising to see all walks of life: skeletons, spiders, vaguely saurian or reptilian persons, even dog people!

She didn’t see fish people though. If she did she wouldn’t have bumped into one.

Amity was so distracted by the colorful populace that she didn’t see the person in front of her and harshly crashed into them. Ghost woke up and immediately took to the ground, but had to dodge the bag falling after her.

While trying to reorient herself, the witch heard someone yell: ‘Hey, dumbass! Why don’t you look where you’re going?!’

The person she bumped into was a tall, fish-like woman with blue scales and a long red ponytail. One of her eyes was covered by a black eyepatch while the other nearly glared a hole into Amity.

The abomination prodigy huffed. ‘No need to be so harsh, it was an accident. Are you alright, ma’am?’

In turn, the fish woman scoffed. ‘Don’t call me ma’am, it makes me feel old. Feel like my ma…no, no, you’re either callin’ me by my name, Undyne, or by my rank as former Captain of the Royal Guard, y’hear me?!’

I think the entire town can hear you, Amity thought. But just as she was about to respond, a smaller lizard-person ran up to them. She had yellow scales and wore big round glasses.

‘Undyne, a-are you okay?! I heard you yelling, so I thought something had happened!’

Undyne briefly flashed a smile at the other. ‘Don’t you worry your pretty little head, babe, just a small collision with a human that doesn’t look ahead.’

Amity tried to hide her amused snort, but the one eye went right back to its glare. ‘Problem, chick?’

‘No, no, it’s just…It’s just funny when I’m called a human. I mean, usually I need to pretend I am, but in this allegedly open environment…’

At this, the small reptilian got a good look at Amity before spreading her eyes wide open, slapping her claws to her cheeks and gasping excitedly. The other two gave her a confused look before she suddenly started to run around Amity, gazing at every little detail and naming it aloud.

‘The purple ponytail! The abomination patterns on her pants! The white cat, the golden eyes, the cool disposition! Yes, yes, yes!’

In a flash, her pointer claw was aimed directly at the witch’s puzzled face. ‘You are Amity Blight, abomination magic prodigy and girlfriend to Luz Noceda from The Owl House, correct?!’

After a moment of silence, Amity awkwardly responded: ‘Y-yes. What about it?’

‘I am a huge fan,’ the lizard monster squealed as she took out her phone and scrolled through a file of fanart and edited screenshots. ‘I’ve binged the show thrice now, I love it, I love the characters, I love the fandom, I love the passion, it’s so great! Can I have your autograph?!’

Completely discombobulated, the witch and her Palisman glanced at Undyne. She sighed, ran a fin through her hair and spoke: ‘Look, give her your signature and I’ll get ya a bite at Grillby’s, okay?’

And that’s how the search for Luz got temporarily postponed to sit in a restaurant booth with the ex-Captain of the Royal Guard, Undyne, and her little otaku girlfriend Alphys.

Alphys was like a cross-breed between Willow and Luz to Amity: one moment she’s calm, shy and letting Undyne do the talking, but the second one of her passions is mentioned she wildly and joyfully goes on and on about it until she peters back down. It was funny.

As for Undyne, they got along quickly after their initial kerfuffle. Kicking ass, taking names and dating dorks was their bread and butter, after all.

Of course, it also helped that the two were just as big a weeaboos as the girlfriends, resulting in a long and debatably aimless conversation about whether or not Goku would win against Dio Brando that was only interrupted by a rumble outside. It shook the entire restaurant and caused the patrons to quickly dive behind their tables.

‘The hell was that?’ Undyne asked, and she got her answer through the distant sounds of savage growling and diabolical laughter. ‘Ah shit, it’s him again. Alphys, keep an eye on the girl, I gotta go kick some-’

‘Um…’

The fish woman looked at her stuttering lover before realizing the seat next to her was empty and growled when seeing a certain purple-haired witch dash towards the distant sound.

Alastor watched passively as a Beowolf clawed away at a car, nearly carving it open like a can of sardines in the hopes of biting the head off the poor frog monster quivering in the driver’s seat.

He almost felt pity for the amphibian. Almost. But any sliver of basic human care Al may have was consumed by the shadow of disappointment that the Grimm are so brutish and unthinking that the stupid animal doesn’t consider tearing out the car door or breaking the windshield instead of scraping a metal roof that clearly its claws can’t get into.

Thankfully, it seemed his target has caught wind of the noise and introduced herself by driving a spiked purple fist into the maw of the Beowolf. Cracking his knuckles, widening his smile and holding his cane behind his back, Alastor prepared to introduce himself to – who is that?!

Whoever this girl was, that’s not the one he’s been trailing all day. She had brown hair. This one has purple hair.

‘Um, good afternoon, young lady,’ he stated in his usual staticky drawl. ‘This was actually meant for someone else, so if you could kindly mosey along…’

But the young woman dashed right past him, focused on the Beowolf which had risen back up and was rearing for a fight. The frog monster had managed to get his car working and sped off, freeing the streets for a face-off. Sighing through his fangs, Alastor smashed the window of a shop behind him and grabbed a few snacks from the display to enjoy the show.

Four golden eyes stared each other down as Amity and the Grimm entered a sort of stand-off. The witch slowly approached with cat-like grace and shiftiness while the monstrous canine stood its ground and let out a low growl. After a moment, it attacked and flew at its enemy with claws and fangs bared. Amity had quickly dodged and retaliated by summoning a wall of abomination goo for the beast to go wild on before using another spiked fist to ram it in its stomach. With a snarl, the Beowolf stumbled back up and prepared to charge at the Blight heiress once more until a blue spear suddenly flew in and pierced its ribcage.

Both Amity and Alastor watched the monster topple and dissipate before looking at the one who had delivered the killing blow, marching up to the woman with worried anger in her eye.

‘What the hell were you thinking?!’ Undyne barked as she pointed at Amity. ‘I’m all for blindly charging at danger, but not when it’s an innocent kid like you!’

‘I’m an innocent young adult, actually,’ the witch dryly bit back. ‘One that was handling things just fine, at that.’

The fish woman slightly calmed down (only slightly) before sighing and crossing her arms. ‘Yeah, yeah, I admit you got a good hit in. Still, you’re a newbie taking on something unknown, I ain’t cool with that kind of risks!’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that first part,’ someone piped up behind them, reminding the ladies they were not alone. ‘She took out a Nevermore this morning.’

The ex-Captain of the Royal Guard got worked up again at the sight of the local villain lounging back with that horrid grin of his and chomping on a candy bar amidst the wreckage of the Grimm’s rampage. Amity, on the other hand, was merely confused: ‘How do you know that?’

Not even bothering to look at them, Alastor simply lifted a finger and pointed towards the sky. Both of the others looked up and were greeted by a large, black mass of feathers and talons diving towards them and smashing them into the pavement. With an angered shout, Undyne dug a spear right through the giant Nevermore holding her down and used the momentary release it gave her to crawl out from beneath its clawed foot and slice off the one on top of Amity before dragging the young witch along with her. Using whatever abomination goo she could muster, Amity formed a large purple barricade between them and the ravenous avian, allowing the heroines to catch their breaths as the monster’s shrieks of pain and anger sounded behind the wall.

Smile still etched onto his face as he watched things unfold, Alastor swallowed another piece of the bar (chocolate and strawberry, yum) and finally answered: ‘Its cousin would like a kind word with you.’

At a reasonable distance from the scene, Alphys shivered in her booth at Grillby’s waiting for Undyne and Amity to return. Going off of the noises she heard (a car racing away, snarling and roaring, magic being cast and the screeching of a Nevermore), it might take a while longer.

She nervously tapped her tiny claws onto the wooden table as the Grimm’s spinechilling cries echoed in the distance. Oh, I hope they’re alright, she thought. I don’t wanna think about the b-b-bad ways this could end…

Then the Royal Scientist shook her head defiantly. No no no, you’re not g-going there! It’s Undyne, you’d need something on the level of Photoshop Flowey to take her down. Not some stupid old Grimm. And Amity, s-she’s been through worse. She was toe-to-toe with the Golden Guard once, what birdbrain could beat that?!

She was disrupted from her train of thought by two flaming hands putting a glass of orange juice down before her. With the other patrons having fled at some point, Grillby had noticed Alphys’ nerves acting up and decided to help bring them back down.

‘They’ll be fine,’ he calmly spoke. The lizard monster quietly nodded and took a sip of her drink before whispering ‘I know’. Then, their attention was drawn by three people entering the establishment and immediately walking up to them.

Frisk excitedly bounded towards their friend and tightly hugged her. ‘Hi Alphys, didn’t expect you here! We were on a walk and got hungry, so I said there’s a place nearby where…Alphys, are you okay?’

They noticed that the scientist had barely reacted to their affection. Another monstrous shriek sounded through the streets, drawing the attention of their present company and prompting Luz to step forward and lightly shake Alphys by her shoulders.

‘Excuse me, Earth to Alphys. What’s going on out there?’

Suddenly the yellow lizard snapped back to attention and started harshly shaking Luz by her shoulders. She screamed out a torrent of panicked gibberish involving Undyne, Amity and danger before Grillby, in his eternal wisdom, took back the glass of orange juice and splashed it in the poor woman’s face.

Letting the human girl go, Alphys took a moment to compose herself and wipe the citrus liquid off of her glasses before facing the humans again and coherently explaining that Undyne and Amity had stormed off to face whatever danger is causing the ruckus. By the end of it, Luz and Frisk had taken on appropriately concerned expressions.

‘We need to go after them,’ the former declared. ‘If they aren’t back yet it’s probably a bigger Grimm than the one Asgore struck down, right?’

The child next to her confirmed this with a nod. The two were just about to go out to the scene of battle when suddenly Naegi dove between them and the doorway.

‘Frisk is staying here,’ he stated. ‘They’re unarmed and I do not want Undyne to go wild on us for endangering them to save her.’

‘Fine, then I’ll go on my own,’ the human witch quickly muttered before diving past the Ultimate Hope and taking off on Stringbean. When reaching the street where it’s all going down, she saw a certain red figure calmly gazing upon an enormous feathered horror with one foot scratching away at a wall of Abomination goo.

The man lazily swiveled his head in her direction, a wide yellow grin spread across his face. ‘Ah, I was wondering if you’d ever show up,’ he chuckled in a voice laced with radio static.

‘What’s happening?’

‘Well, there was supposed to be a Beowolf here for you to fight so I could gauge your abilities and keep them in mind for further encounters,’ he calmly explained before turning back to the action. ‘But instead your little girlfriend and Undone showed up to ruin everything and lure a vengeful bird out, so here we are. Candy bar?’

Luz awkwardly declined the offer before running up to the barricade and facing the Nevermore. It zeroed in on the human before it and let out one more ear-piercing scream before spreading its beak wide open and trying to chomp down on her. With a swift movement, Luz threw an ice glyph down its throat before jumping upwards to dodge the open maw and let the beast crash onto the street. As the magic worked itself and a blue spot of crystalized cold materialized through the back of the Nevermore’s neck, the human witch tightly clutched her staff before falling down onto the Grimm and ramming the purple pole right into the ice.

With a shattering crack, the ice broke and the neck it had penetrated snapped causing the enormous avian to collapse lifelessly. The barrier of Abomination goo started to melt and go down as the duo hidden behind it witnessed Luz Noceda standing atop their prior aggressor like a hunter atop his newest hunting trophy.

‘My batata!’ Amity cried out as she ran forward, arms spread out.

‘My sweet potato!’ Luz cried out as she dove into her girlfriend’s embrace and locked her lips tightly onto Amity’s.

‘My goodness,’ Undyne thought as she watched the enormous Grimm fade into oblivion, its death replaying in her mind.

‘My eyes,’ Alastor thought as he watched the display of affection before him, sorely resisting the urge to gag.

Once they had enough PDA for the moment, the girls nervously giggled as they met the fish woman’s impressed stare. ‘Um, Undyne,’ Amity said, ‘this is my awesome girlfriend Luz.’

‘Damn straight she’s awesome.’ The ex-Captain of the Guard stepped forward and gave the young woman a tight handshake. ‘Brutal kill, kid. I respect that.’

Then the witch’s mood fell as she turned towards the Radio Demon, munching on another candy bar from his comfortable viewing spot. ‘And that is…um…’

‘Alastor the Radio Demon,’ her other half casually stated. ‘I’ve seen the show, heard the story, apparently he escaped from the afterlife and set up shop as the local nuisance.’

The villain’s eye and smile twitched and his grip on the treat in his hand tightened at the casual way she wrote him off, but he forced himself to shrug it off and instead walk up to the trio with an open hand. ‘We meet at last, Loops!’

‘…My name is Luz, actually.’

‘Yeah, yeah, whatever, kid,’ Alastor muttered before seizing her hand and shaking it vigorously. ‘Pleasure to be meeting you, quite a pleasure!’

An uncomfortable silence took place once he let go. After a moment, Amity awkwardly coughed and asked: ‘So, what’s your deal with the black monsters and stuff?’

‘My connect ion to the Grimm is none of your concern, young lady,’ the man answered in a maliciously sugary tone. ‘Ask your girlfriend if you want to know the drill, she’s been learning lore the whole day. I just want to make one thing clear with this little stunt…’

Suddenly, he leaned in and stared directly into Luz’ eyes. She fumbled back a bit and the two behind her prepared to strike, but nothing happened save for the sinner calmly declaring:

‘You’re better gonna be worth my time, new kid. You may have bumped off a Grimm and have a whole story of accomplishments and actions to justify all the hullabaloo around your arrival, but so did Naegi and he hasn’t been able to back it up since. Hope you got more of this hardcore action in you, because this is going to be fun.’

And with those ominous words, he opened a portal beneath himself and fell away.

‘Welcome to the club,’ Makoto jollily said after the girls had returned to Grillby’s and recounted their experience just now. ‘That’s just his way of saying you’re one of us now.’

‘And being one of us now has the perk of usually being the ones dealing with his antics,’ Frisk added.

Luz silently nodded. So this is going to be the daily grind, huh? Just casually dealing with savage beasts and vague serial killers.

Meh, could’ve been worse.