Chapter Text
* THE WAILING KNIGHT APPEARED
It came like a blizzard: Slow, steady, and quiet. And then, suddenly, all at once. Chilling to the bone, not only its onslaught of attacks, but the screaming wails that it unleashed. Not a whisper, not a roar, not a terrified and shrill screech, but a wail of anguish to curdle even the thickest of blood.
Upon first hearing it, Susie dropped to one knee. Kris could spy a rogue tear dripping down her cheek. Then, when they reached up, they could feel their own. A familiar voice, what felt like it had reached through their chest and ripped out their very soul just to make a point. And Ralsei... Poor Ralsei, shaken such as to take even a step back, unable to find the will to fight back in their most dire hour so far. All three taken down swiftly just as they had begun to finally push back. In a flash, it all turned to white. The knight: The Wailing Knight, had left only one standing.
Susie struggles to get up. Being reptilian means an intolerance to the cold, after all. But her defiance, courage, and power are met with the raising blade, struggling with its own nature. Simultaneously shifting between pure black opaque and a perfect clear, like a solid shadow. The blade touches her shoulder, pressing down, just enough to prevent her from standing. But it does not harm. Cold as it is, it does not cut. The knight stands before and above her, and in an act of pure mercy allows her to live. Its blade raises up, and touches her other shoulder before evaporating into mist. Then, and only then, does she lose the strength to stand, and collapse on the spot.
Her mind races as she passes out, watching the silhouette of the knight as it walks away. That shadow, too familiar not to place. She tries to think, to figure it out before she forgets as she is so prone to do...
It all started with a piece of chalk. A stupid little thing that Alphys could have very well gotten herself, but chose to make Susie do it instead. And Kris. Of course, if she had to give any credit to her, it was the only reason the two even became friends. “Still...” she wonders “Who the hell closed the closet door on us?”
They had never caught a glimpse of it. It was too sudden, unexpected, and what followed distracted her enough to forget to think about it again. Then, today, things had started out already being strange. For one, Noelle was out of the hospital for classes. Everyone was in a minor uproar over it, fussing over every little thing about her. But Noelle, being herself, declined any help, barely said a single word, and kept to her gloomy self. In that sense, she and Kris really did seem like the type to be childhood friends. Then, after class? Right as they were about to enter the dark world? She came directly to them.
“Did you have fun?” she asked, seemingly out of the blue. She was smiling, but the bangs over her eyes made it hard to tell what she was really feeling.
Susie was taken aback, internally panicking that somehow, she had learned about their secret, and so asked, “Uh, whadya mean? Fun doing what?”
“I heard you went to get chalk yesterday and didn’t come out... until classes were over.” she answered.
“Wait, how do you—!?”
She answered as if she already had the answer queued, “Catti told me.”
“Oh. We just, uh...”
Immediately, interrupting her, Noelle asked, “So what did you do in there?” But her tone was flat, not giving any suspicion, jealousy, frustration, anger, or anything of the sort. Almost as toneless as Kris, but with the undercurrent of someone trying to look happy despite everything.
Susie, of course, looked to Kris. And they, of course, answered, “Hanging out.” If there’s anything they’re good at, it’s keeping a secret.
And she just took it at face value and laughed. Of course, she had done so before, but never so laboriously. Susie had visited her before in that sterile white hell. She was never that talkative on account of the whole slowly dying thing. But she’d always laugh a little, appreciate the company. It was the least Susie could do to visit, seeing as how she was the first and only person to ever be nice to her. Before her health went downhill, that is.
There, she’d always find Rudy to accompany her. Despite how quiet and reserved Noelle had become, he still kept the energy in the room up. Still made her smile despite everything. Always so sure she’ll make a recovery. Spilled a lot about the past in the process. Mostly about her sister, who went missing years ago. Susie thought, “(He’s probably scared of losing another daughter...)” It crossed her mind, staring at the waning doe, that she must think she’s cursed or something. “First her sister, now her. And her dad’s not looking too good either. No wonder she’s all depressed.”
But despite everything, she still showed up that day... just to go to school. Susie couldn’t understand it. Couldn’t wrap her mind around why anyone would willingly do that. But what’s done is done. As an act of pity, Alphys grouped her up with Berdly who everyone knew would do all of the work himself even if he wasn’t asked. He already got into the habit of doing all of her homework for her. So they decided to head over to the library, just for a little group work. And invited Susie and Kris.
Which led them here, to Cyber World.
The first thing they found was Berdly, and then... Queen. She gloated, casually committing war crimes with one hand and kidnapping children with the other. A degree of comical villainly that could only be described as either performative or completely and utterly devoid of any purpose beyond desire. And Susie could give less of a rat’s ass about the bird, but what drove her most was Noelle.
“Nobody as sick as her has ANY business being in a dark world! Do you have any idea how much danger she’s in!? What if she passes out in the middle of a fight!?” she told Kris, who themselves had collapsed from exhaustion at one point while exploring the city. “We NEED to find her, NOW.”
But when prompted for an honest opinion, and after Ralsei begging her to answer, she gave one, “...We haven’t seen so much as a sight of her anywhere. I know this place is big, but we must’ve covered like half of it by now and NO NOELLE! I’m just... I’m worried. Really worried. Even Queen can’t find her! What if we don’t make it in time? What if we close the fountain and find her sitting there in the light world, dead because we weren’t fast enough!?”
That shook Kris up in a way that she had never seen before. The effect was so immediate and apparent that they went from lying flat on the floor to sprinting across an alleyway in less than a minute. They even accidentally left Susie and Ralsei behind to go their own way. And on that side path, Susie finally popped the question she’d been wondering about for a while: “Can you teach me healing magic?”
He was surprised at first, though not as much as she thought he would be. But he seemed to intuitively understand why: That she wanted to find a way to help her. Heal that illness, if possible. And if not, to at least make things easier. Perhaps it was because of this that he teased, “You’re really smitten with her, aren’t you?”
But she denied, too flustered to be persuasive, “N-No! I just don’t want to watch her keep suffering, is all!”
“Because you love her?”
“She’s just a friend!”
“You’re blushing, Susie.” Ralsei laughed.
“YOU’RE EMBARRASSING ME!” she yelled back.
They fought about it, but she eventually figured the trick out. It was and still is crap, but she learned it. When they met back up with Kris, they were...not normal. Something had very badly scared them, perhaps even traumatized them, but they wouldn’t say what. Then Queen, again. The entire adventure had really been just a massive bust with only a few good things happening. Her continued efforts to capture Berdly proved both ineffective and questionable at best. Both in execution and purpose. “(Who the hell would want BERDLY to open a dark fountain!?)”’ she recalls thinking and still does. The entire latter half of the adventure honestly seemed to only end up being a desperate attempt to claw together what little remnants of a coherent plan Queen still had left. Without Noelle, who she constantly reminisced about, everything seemed to fall apart. Constantly went on about how important, how powerful, how amazing she is. Her and...
December.
That was her sister’s name. She heard it from Rudy, but it only seemed to put Noelle in a bad mood no matter how many positive memories they had together. Even for Susie, it hurt to hear everyone go on and on endlessly about someone who isn’t around anymore. Like watching a delusional religious fanatic preach a gospel that nobody wants to hear.
“Oh, December!” Queen said, pulling up an entire photo album of old pictures with the Holiday family together “Nobody Could Ask For A Better Big Sister! I Even Had A Robot In Her Likeness Made Just For Noelle So That She Could Interface With It Whenever She Wanted! No More Crying For This Little Lost Girl, Only Xes and Os, 1s and 0s! Am I Such A Good Mom Or What?”
Susie hated even remembering that pompous, egotistical attitude. Seeing all of that, especially the lifelike robot, made her stomach drop. It was like they were rooting through someone’s diary, and Kris was especially uncomfortable. They wouldn’t even look anywhere but the floor, and refused to be in the same room as the robot that wouldn’t stop spouting one-liners that she could swear were from a movie.
Nearing the top, Susie insisted upon doing a once-over of the dark world and even asking Swatch about Noelle’s whereabouts. No dice. Nothing. Nowhere to be found. The only thing they could find was in her room, just that weird robot, a statue that looks vaguely like Susie, and...bottles of pills. A lot of them. As usual, Queen helpfully labeled each part of the room based on search history. She could barely pronounce the word for these, “Escitalopram” being the easiest one. She winced at the calendar that consisted entirely of only the date December the 25th.
With nothing left to do, they headed straight up to Queen. She had already taken control of Berdly. Again. The second time that happened. But Kris INSISTED upon finishing the fight as peacefully as possible, so that’s the plan they went with. Thankfully, he was able to break out of the mind control and fight back, sending Queen flying after her last pathetic attempt of trying to goad him into making a fountain. Everyone interrogated him on whether or not he saw Noelle anywhere, but to no avail.
But Queen appeared again. This time in a giant robot, which they had somehow failed to notice while going through the mansion. She went on her big evil plan spiel and relentlessly began to attack everyone save for Berdly, who she intended to keep trying to persuade. And...she actually got through to him at one point. “Make a world that’s better for everyone, where we can all be happy.” she said.
And he would’ve done it then and there, if he hadn’t been interrupted, first by Ralsei, “STOP! If you make another fountain...!
But before he could even finish the thought, it happened. The temperature of the air dropped by twelve degrees. A blade of ice came out of nowhere and nearly cut Berdly clean open. If not for his armor, he’d be way worse off. But Queen... Well, she was choking the life out of everyone at the time, but then the blades were turned on her. One swipe is all it took to cleave her mech’s head off like it was made out of paper mache.
She dropped everyone on the roof immediately as her mech collapsed. And right as the three went to check on and heal Berdly...
* THE WAILING KNIGHT APPEARED
A knightly figure, clad in black armor so dark that it appeared to eat light. A robe of flowing silvery darkness, forming what could be described as looking like an armored skirt, hood down to reveal its wicked helmet adorned by wing-shaped antlers on either side. It wielded a blade of something resembling glass or ice, simultaneously impossible to see through, yet completely transparent. As if looking at solidified oil or a dark fountain itself, it reflected different colors every few seconds to create a shadowy kaleidoscope. And behind the knight, a pair of floating wings segmented, made entirely out of those frozen blades.
Ralsei practically froze on the spot, so scared out of his mind that he could barely form words. Kris, as well, didn’t move a muscle save for preparing their own sword. When Susie got through to Ralsei, all he could mutter was, “The Knight... Why...?”
And Berdly, after he got back up, tried not to appear shaken, but he clearly was. After all, he could have died there if the knight had tried harder. Susie couldn’t figure out what to say either, except for, “Who are you!? What do you want!?”
The knight stared at her. Cocked its head to the side. Then seemed to look... down? But that was only preparation, for its armor morphed and transformed around it into a grotesque visage of some kind of animal, a white heart beating at its center as it unleashed the most chilling wail of tormented agony it could possibly muster. And then it drew a blade. And another. And another. Until it was surrounded.
All attempts at reasoning with it had failed. It simply wasn’t listening. But it went easy at first, at least in hindsight. Just a few slashes here and there, a thrown blade over there, it was acting as if this was a game to it. But those attacks still hurt, a lot. Susie could easily shrug most of them off, but the others weren’t so lucky. At one point, it raised its hands up and casted some kind of spell that nearly turned Berdly into a popsicle before it really started to get going. Then he was toast. Berdly was very easily the one the knight hit the hardest, going down multiple times and it still targeting him as if it held some kind of grudge, or perhaps he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And Ralsei, poor Ralsei got turned into minced fur at least four times once the knight stopped going easy on everyone. But he tried his damndest, being the only one who could keep everyone relatively healthy since all the ReviveMints got wasted on Berdly. And Kris... they started out completely out of it, as if they just got hit with a wave of nausea. Or were having a panic attack. Hard to tell which one could have caused them to falter so badly. But when everyone else was down? They finally started to fend for themselves, even able to dodge most of the knight’s attacks flawlessly. As if while alone, they entered a sort of flow state.
It couldn’t last forever. As soon as the knight was either satisfied or bored, it flung Kris away like an insect and started to whisper something. Susie could barely hear it over how distorted the knight’s voice was, but it’s not like it would matter. She could tell it was about to do something big, so she got everyone up to the best of her abilities and prepared to defend.
If it had attacked from the front, they probably would’ve been fine. But it didn’t. Instead, it used another spell. They couldn’t have possibly seen it coming: It came from the floor around them, gathering all of the ice and snow from the fight and swirling it around them, trapping them in a horrifying vortex of frost where even just standing still inside of it felt like being stabbed by a million tiny needles.
And it... wasn’t as dangerous as she thought it would be. Susie had even said a final prayer in the moment she thought she’d die, but she instead found herself and her team still mostly intact. Defeated, obviously, but alive. And the second she tried to stand up, to show that she could shrug it off, her legs buckled beneath her. Her axe clattered to the ground. It came closer, raising its blade, as if to finish her.
But it didn’t. She isn’t sure what it did, but for some reason, it showed her mercy. Something that wouldn’t accept it, showed it. Something that would only spare or be spared on its own terms. And as it walked away, as she laid on the rooftop of the mansion covered in snow, she could see someone else getting up.
Kris.
They were walking, limping after it, their hand outstretched, but too slow to reach. Susie looked up to them, smiling, proud of the guts they finally grew, that they could look so utterly heroic. But when the knight finally left, she could feel her vision fade. Sleep was, in fact, looking VERY attractive at the moment. “Wait, what was I trying to figure out? The Knight... It... I’ll... figure it out when I wake up...”