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Susie holds the small red soul in her claws as she runs… Kris’s soul. It's glowing a little more dimly than it usually glows, which is a little concerning, but she doesn't really know enough about humans to be sure. But as she's actively running from the knight after taking their soul back from it, maybe it's better that it's not glowing too brightly.
She gets to the forest not long later so it should be easy to lose the knight now. And eventually the sounds of growling and screeching fade. Sitting against a tree, she starts to catch her breath, and she looks down at the soul. She recalls a muddled memory of an old class relating to souls or something like that. For most monsters, their souls can never leave the body without killing them instantly, but humans only die without it after a day-ish so Kris probably isn't doing well, but they're alive. Hopefully, so is Ralsei, even if he's slowly turning into a statue at the moment.
Holding it up to her face, she sighs, sarcastically telling it like it's actually them, “maybe if you COMMUNICATED more then we wouldn't be in HELL right now, you idiot.” But she isn’t actually mad at them. She might’ve been mad for a bit after learning about them working with the knight, and she's certainly… /frustrated,/ but she understands the situation they were in. Even if she wants to grab them by the shoulders and shake them a whole lot until they're both screaming real loud.
People don't really act logical with a metaphorical gun to their head, anyways. At least they actually told her at some point. That means they still care, right?
Although, she hears growling in the distance. The knight- Or Dess, if Kris was right- is still following her. Fuck. Great. She tries to quickly think up something to do before pulling the soul closer.
“C'mere, Kris…” and she absorbs it into her chest like she’s seen them do, though trying not to fuse souls with it. Dess approaches further, and Susie starts running again once she's sure it's settled, this time running around the other way to get back to Ralsei and Kris.
…
Kris had been passed out for a long time now. Their arm is bloodied and those inexplicable clusters of short, fluffy feathers are still visible on their cheeks, neck and elbows. He guesses getting most of the lower half of their arm ripped off was enough to knock them out.
Up to his left ankle is turned to stone, so he hobbles shakily and ungracefully over to Kris, putting a hand up to their chest just to check if they’re still breathing as if checking if a dog is still alive while it’s asleep. And they are breathing, just a little shallowly and slowly… he’s never seen them so vulnerable like this. It’s just odd, and pulls at his heartstrings a bit even though they’d just admitted to being a traitor no longer than two hours or so prior to this.
The darkner pulls his paw back, dried tears on the short fur of his cheeks, sitting on the couch next to them… Kris’s house is nice, but he wishes he’d gotten to visit under less terrifying circumstances and not just to find shelter for the time being...
He looks at their arm again and sees the gauze he’d wrapped around it (or what’s left of it) getting a little too soaked with blood, so he gets up from the couch and scurries off to the bathroom again to grab more. Ralsei doesn’t have much of the story but from what he’d gathered, Kris’s arm got ripped off by the knight, and Susie got there in time to bring them to Ralsei, and she quickly blabbered something about the knight- no, /Dess/ taking their soul as well so she immediately ran off.
After rummaging around in the cupboards, he runs back, gently removes the bloodied gauze, and tries to wrap it again with more- and just as he’s doing that, Susie bursts through the door. Both of them make some kind of surprised squeak noise but quickly settle down. The first thing Ralsei notices is that there’s a faintly glowing red heart shape at her chest, almost like…
Oh. Oh no.
“Susie. Please don’t tell me you absorbed it-”
“Huh? I mean, not fully, it’s fine.” She moves her claws up to it, and like a magnet, it kind of follows them as she pulls away again, gently holding it like it could break at any moment. “How’s Kris?”
“Oh, uh… physically, they’re doing better, I think… It took a lot of healing spells but they’re not bleeding as much. How’s their soul?”
“Uhh… Not really sure. But I’m, like, pretty sure it’s okay.” She walks up to Kris. “No idea what Dess was planning with it, though. Anyways, do I just, like, put it back, or something? Actually, I’m scared of doing it wrong, can you-?”
Ralsei nods, taking it into his paws and he leans over to press it against their chest. Their breath wavers for a moment as they reabsorb it.
“Do you know long it’ll be until they’re awake again?”
“I’m… not sure, actually. Sorry.”
“Nah, don’t be sorry. If they’re not up in an hour let’s just start yelling a bunch until they do. Also, wanna move upstairs? Pretty sure there’s less windows up there. Just in case. I dunno.” Ralsei just nods in response, really up for doing anything at this point. Susie locks the door and turns off the already dim lights before she gathers Kris into her arms, holding them close as she starts to walk upstairs with Ralsei in tow.
Ralsei sighs, “I wonder if… after the roaring, one day I could figure out a way to come here again. Or something. I- I know it’s impossible, I just-” a titan stomps outside, distant but enough to shake the ground, “I wish I could see the stars with you and Kris /without/ an apocalypse going on, hehah… hah… hh… um. Does that sound stupid?”
“What? Nah, we could figure it out. Logic and fate can’t tell /me/ what to do.” Ralsei giggles at her response, and Susie smiles a little, just happy to see him not miserable for once in a while. “Uh, couldja open that door, also?”
“Oh, right,” he scurries forward and opens the door to Kris’s room, and Susie walks inside, setting Kris themself on their bed before anything else.
“Thanks, Ral.”
Ralsei nods, but remembers Susie’s in her light world attire and asks, “wait, how did you even fight the knight? You don’t have anything you typically have in the dark world. No axe, or…”
“Um. I punched them in the face, grabbed the soul while they were distracted, and I just ran. I didn’t really fight.” She pauses before sort of jokingly adding, “I mean, do you really think I stand a chance against the roaring fuckin’ knight like this? I’d get, like, exploded by their evil mind powers. Or something.” While she was there, she did notice that the knight seemed less alive and more like a feral zombie raccoon with the way she stumbled around and barely spoke, but she doesn't add that.
“I don’t think they have powers like that.”
“I’m joking, Ral. But still, I’m surprised I even got out of there after punching em’ square in the face. I dunno.”
Ralsei realizes something. “And you’re sure they didn’t follow you?”
“Nah, I made sure to lose them.” She shuts the blinds to cover the one window in the room, “we’re gonna have to face them again at some point, though, anyways. We can’t just sit here and wait for the titans to fall dead out of nowhere.”
Ralsei sort of shudders thinking about that- having to see the knight face to face. But Susie’s right. It’s inevitable. “And we’ll need Kris to take the titans down…” he glances at them, or more specifically, their arm. “This… might be way harder than we thought it’d be.” Mind racing, he feels his eyes get a little wetter and he tries to rub them. There’s so many ways this could go wrong.
…But out of nowhere, Kris starts stirring. Both of them turn their attention to them, watching as they sit up looking as confused as any person could possibly look. The room goes silent until they suddenly grumble, “did I die…??”
“Thankfully, no,” says Susie, “but you almost did, like, twice.”
Kris glances at their arm and they shakily sigh. It's visibly uncomfortable- or quite painful, honestly- and they're not great at hiding it. “m’kay, so that was real…” They rub their eyes and ask, “what /happened?”/
“Not a lot, actually. I grabbed your soul from Dess and ran back here, uh… and then you woke up.” She just shrugs after, and Kris soaks in the information.
“Ralsei, did you heal me…?” They hiss in pain as they sit up, their chest still aching as well from when their soul was ripped out. It's still odd moving on their own now, anyways.
He nods, looking down at his feet. Ralsei assumes they're mad for whatever reason so he braces for some kind of negatively toned reply, but-
“...Thanks. For that, I mean. I'll try to do something for you if we- when this is all over.”
“I- wh- o- of course!” His voice is barely cooperating, which irks him, but he continues, “sorry about your arm, though, um… I did what I could. I can't heal that much of it but I could slow the bleeding at least.”
“It's fine. Still, thank you for…” They seem to realize something and their heart drops a little, but they don't spill what they're thinking. They might not get to play the piano again. No, not might, they /won't./ But they force their voice to finish the sentence. “Thanks for helping at all.”
/I really don't deserve this,/ they almost say, but… something holds them back and they choke on the words.
Ralsei states, “we'll have to come up with a way to get Kris closer to the titans. They don't have an arm… or their sword.”
“...This might sound weird but my mom had a gun just in case, uh… Would it be useful or anything?”
Susie shrugs. “It’s better than a butter knife.”
“Hm… I'll be right back.” They crawl out of their bed, running out of the room to likely look through their mom's room for the supposed gun she had. And Susie and Ralsei have time to themselves again, awkward, tense silence filling the room.
“I've been trying not to say it in front of them because it probably sounds rude, but… isn't their side of the room… weirdly barren?”
“Barren?”
“Empty.”
“Ah, yeah, I noticed that.” She looks over at the glow in the dark star that she took from their brother's side and put over their bed.
Ralsei follows her gaze and finds it before sighing and smiling. Of course she’d do that. “Did you…?”
She nods.
Ralsei hums in response. He's about to open his mouth again to speak, but Kris suddenly returns, empty handed. They sigh, “I couldn't find it. Sorry.”
Susie adds, “it's whatever, we didn't have a gun before so nothing really changed.” Kris nods, biting their cheek as they move to lean against the wall by their bed. “Super irrelevant but what's it like to be, like, not possessed? I feel we haven't really talked about that much. We had five minutes to be sappy about it before we realized the roaring started, hah.”
“Oh fuck, you're right- I mean, yeah, we haven't had enough time to, anyways. With the roaring n’ stuff.” They think about it for a second, “it's… kinda weird, I guess. Words are hard. It felt like there were strings holding me up and they got cut out of nowhere. It's kinda weird walking and stuff instead of having someone do it for me.”
“Huh… like that… Mr. Spamton guy?” Ralsei looks up, asking.
Kris shudders a little. It's scarily similar when they think about it, except the difference is that Spamton couldn't live without his puppeteer, and he crumbled to death not long after getting a sickeningly sweet taste of freedom… and Kris got to live.
“Yeah, I think.” Their mind lingers on that little salesman a moment longer and recalls putting the glasses he left behind in their room in Castletown somewhere. But they continue relating to their own possession, “though I'm not gonna lie, I didn't really hate the thing controlling me. It wasn't evil or anything, just really curious and a little annoying in a slightly endearing way.”
Susie asks, “like a cat?”
“Yeah. But still sucked being possessed. I don't think it liked it, either, honestly.”
Susie chuckles a bit at that. “I wonder why it randomly left after the roaring started.”
Kris just shrugs. “Coulda been helpful during the roaring. It actually knew how to use a sword,” they somewhat were joking, though now they realize they might need to start practicing with their sword to know how to use it on their own after the roaring and whatnot. If they survive, that is.
“At least you can use your knife thingy,” says Susie. And Kris remembers they have that to work with, too.
“Oh, yeah,” they add, “maybe I could just, like, jab it into its shield thingamajig since I might be able to get closer up. Like, last time we fought these we kinda had to attack from afar. And if it can shatter it enough I can just jump in n’ do the thing.”
Susie and Ralsei catch on, eyes widening.
“The church!” exclaims Susie abruptly.
“Huh?” Ralsei tilts his head.
“The- The church, it's tall as fuck. Kris can stand on it n’ try to jump onto the titan if it passes by or something.”
Ralsei recalls the titans being rather tall but he's not used to this town so he can't exactly estimate how tall the church is. So he just nods along with the plan Susie and Kris are conjuring up.
“I might need help getting onto the church for obvious reasons but I think this might work, actually. We gotta do this sooner rather than later, anyways,” they think for a moment, “should be easy peasy lemon squeezy or whatever.”
Ralsei braces to stand up. “Oh, we're going-?”
“Yeah!”
Susie stands up, stretching her arms and confident. Ralsei admires the two’s determination as they both head to go outside. Hopefully this goes well.
…
It was not, in fact, easy peasy lemon squeezy like Kris said. It's been several hours of trying to do this. And they've either fallen or been thrown off before fully defeating it about twice now. The titan hasn't bothered to heal since the crack Kris made in its shield is practically insignificant, so maybe this time it'll work. Susie slowly climbs back down from the roof of the church after helping them get up.
They hesitate for a minute, flexing their hand trying to figure out how to start as they stand atop the church. The smallest of the three titans slowly passes by and they take a step back on the roof before running forward, attempting to jump onto its shoulder.
And somehow, they land. Their feet and ankles hurt a little from the impact but they're surprisingly intact and not a puddle on the ground. However, it's difficult to stay balanced on its shoulder, still moving and shaking the ground with its every step.
They look up at its head, a glowing star shape covering its face. Kris takes out their dagger from their pocket with their one hand, carefully and slowly walking sideways to approach it. Their breaths are shaky, praying they don't fall, but they do eventually make it in front. The dagger raises… and they abruptly smash it into the star-like object as hard as they can. The titan screeches and Kris flinches - it's loud, especially since they're directly in front of its face. It's wings suddenly close like it's trying to block itself from an outside threat, so now Kris is squished between heavy feathers and the titan. But it's better than being flung away. They move their arm forward again, trying to smash down its shield.
It eventually crumbles, and Kris is about to jump into it but they end up losing their balance and falling in anyways. They panic for a moment, but once they're there, it's not long before their soul finds its way back out and glows bright, seeming to vanquish the blinding shadow surrounding them. They notice a few more feathers popping up alongside the others, but their soul soon returns to them and they fall back down to the street. Susie eventually catches them, letting them back down to the ground. Kris shivers. They swear as they fell further it got harder to breathe, like it gets more condensed at the core, or something.
“You good?”
They feel an odd new weight in their chest but they’re unsure if they should say that. “I'm alive at the very least, hah. Also pretty sure there's, uh, more of those feathers. I might have to actually tell my mom about it after the roaring.” Not like they could’ve hidden it with hoodies and bandaids much longer, anyways, especially since the summer was getting a little muggier with each passing day. Ralsei takes wobbly steps closer, limping to get a look at it. It’s worrisome but he doesn’t want to accidentally discourage them from continuing to fight the titans somehow.
Kris just looks ahead, noticing silhouettes of the other titans, stumbling about aimlessly in more distant corners of the town. “...The other titans are… way taller, and there prolly won't be one that'll pass by the tallest building in town again. Or any time soon. Like, never. I mean never.”
“Should I just throw you at it?” offers Susie abruptly, her tone serious despite the farfetched idea.
Kris almost laughs at how bizarre her offer is but they realize she's actually serious about it. “eh, still. You can't really throw that high. I mean, no one can. And I probably can't climb with just one arm even if you could get me up halfway.” They /could,/ but it’d be a struggle, and likely end with them extremely dead if they fall.
Susie shrugs.
Ralsei adds, “could we knock it down somehow?”
“How?” Kris asks, “they're /huge./ That's not really easy to do.”
Everyone's suddenly stumped. Kris tries to think of something but nothing really comes to mind with the limitations set before the three. Titans are huge and they only got that first one easy-ish because it was small and it happened to be passing by the church.
“Susie. Maybe throwing me up is kind of the only option, actually. Just- just promise to catch me if I fall.”
“I thought you can't climb with one hand?”
“I'll try. There's only two titans left, anyways.”
Ralsei seems to have no problem with it, determined to get the roaring over with, but Susie worriedly glances at him expecting him to disagree with Kris’s plans to keep pushing. Hm. She just turns to them.
“Maybe we can regroup back at your house and take a break. You just took down a damn titan. Like, I don't think we can do them all in one go.”
“...Why not?” Ralsei barks with an uncommon bitterness to his tone, “if we let the roaring go on any longer, people will get hurt. People will die, Susie.”
Susie’s a little taken aback by the aggressive tone he’s taking, so she copies it, hissing, “I don't want /Kris/ to die while they're doing it, you Ford Maverick.”
Kris tenses up. They really don't want their friends to fight in the middle of an apocalypse.
“I don't, either, Susie! And they're not going to!”
“Bullshit.”
Kris interjects, “this maybe isn’t the best time to be arguing-” Susie and Ralsei glance their way but just… ignore them. And they continue, the topic shifting as they yell and growl. And from behind the church, a titan spawn peeks around the corner stumbles towards them, having noticed the loud voices even if it has not one idea what they’re discussing. It can’t see well after QC thwacked it in the face with a crowbar, but it can see barely enough to know there’s someone there. Breathing shakily and heavy like this is its first time being alive, it slowly drags its feet forward across the empty streets.
“But I'm supposed to-!” He suddenly pauses, yelping as something burning hot grazes his calf. He jumps back and everyone shifts their attention to the titan spawn weakly trying to claw its way forward. While Kris and Ralsei panic and try to stand back, Susie steps forward with a scowl and smashes down on its head with her boot, rubbing it into the concrete a little just to be completely sure that the thing’s dead.
“Kinda forgot about the titan spawn being a thing. Jeez.” She takes in a deep breath and looks at Ralsei when she exhales. His leg looks a little fucked up. Frankly, she's not sure how he's not collapsed on the ground at the moment. “...Are you okay?”
“You-”
/”Are you okay.”/
“I'm f… I could be doing better.” The air is tense, and the silence is uncomfortable enough to hurt like daggers.
“Sit down.” There's a swirl of affection in the harsh demanding tone, the kind of bittersweetness you can't find from anyone else.
…He doesn't argue with that, sitting down where the sidewalk meets the grass. He's never felt real grass before. Even in the pain it's nice. Cool under the moonlight but soft. And real. As Susie kneels down in front of him, taking his scarf off, he indulges a little, spreading his fingers to feel the blades of grass. Susie starts to wrap his scarf around the burn on his leg.
“Sorry, I- I was prolly too harsh on you.”
“No, no, I'm sorry, I should've listened to you-” He looks over at Kris, standing by awkwardly like they're waiting to be told to do something. At some point they went to the other side of the road to rip grass out of the ground to give Susie and Ralsei space while they talk. “I think both of us should've listened to Kris.”
And they both grimace.
“Probably, yeah, actually. Maybe I should say sorry to em’ too-” She finishes tying the pink scarf around Ralsei’s leg. Black blood seeps through a little bit it's mostly alright for the time being. And she tries to cast a small healing spell… which doesn't work very well, only healing maybe 10 HP, but it's not nothing. And she looks over both of his legs. One’s slowly turning to stone and the other has some not so great burns scarred into his calf.
“Want me to carry you or something?”
“Wuh- no, no, you don’t have to, I… I’m fine. And you’ve been doing a lot of heavy lifting lately anyways. You’ve had to catch Kris maybe 8 or 9 times when they were trying to get on the titan.”
“Pssh, don’t worry about that. They’re light as hell.”
“Wouldn’t it slow us down, or-?”
“What? No. Maybe the opposite, actually.”
“Oh! Well… if it wouldn’t bother you I wouldn’t mind.”
Susie immediately hoists him up into her arms, grinning and showing her sharp teeth. “It’s like, uhh, those stories with the knights and the princesses and stuff.” He’s still processing the fact that she’s carrying him, but… the idea of him being a princess does something to him. Like being referred to by his name for the first time or stretching after sitting for several hours. Ralsei brushes it off, knowing the prophecy has plans set for him already, but that odd yet light and fluffy feeling sticks to him.
But Susie makes her way towards Kris, calling to them, “yo, Kris, c’mere! We figured stuff out and we’re chill now!” Kris jolts up like they’re being startled awake, and they quickly scramble to their feet and run over to the two. “Uh, I realized I should. Also probably say sorry. For earlier. And- and ignoring you.”
“Oh- y-yeah, it’s chill. Let’s just… try to talk stuff out without yelling about it, maybe.” Everyone vaguely nods. “I don’t mean to dig up random shit for no reason, also, but I do think we should head back to my house to take /some/ kind of break. Especially since Ralsei’s also kinda not doing well, too.”
Ralsei just sighs and nods. They’re right. If anyone tried to push themself any further now, they’d hurt themself more than they’d be making progress in stopping the roaring. Since it seems the group is agreeing on that, the fun gang makes their way over to Kris’s house.
…
Kris opens the door, shivering as if the crisp, cold air is a stranger at this point. Susie follows behind them, nudging the door closed with her boot still covered in the blood of a titan spawn. Susie asks, “should we head upstairs again like we did earlier?”
Kris thinks for a moment before nodding, and they all continue walking up the creaky stairs.
“What’s with that weird orange stain in the corner?” asks Susie again, noticing that near the bottom of the staircase, though she realizes it might come across as rude so she’s about to apologize but Kris answers,
“Orange soda, heheh. My brother and I used to fill cups up all the way with water and it’d spill everywhere. And then we did the same with orange soda. My mom, uh, obviously stopped buying it at some point when-”
But as they walk upstairs, there’s Toriel, holding an empty glass wine bottle like she’s prepared to knock someone’s head off with it any moment now. Everyone freezes and gasps, but Toriel quickly drops it, incoherently mumbles something as if about to cry, and pulls Kris into a hug before actually bursting into tears. Susie silently steps back with Ralsei to just give them space for a moment. “I’ve been looking for you, Kris! Where were you!?”
“...I dunno if you’re ready for that story.”
“And your arm-!?”
“That’s- That’s a whole different thing, actually.”
“And who’s… that?” He looks an awful lot like Asriel, but she’ll ask Kris about that later.
Kris follows her gaze until they see it lands on Ralsei. Susie grimaces knowing that none of this will be easily explained without a little bit of freaking out from Toriel. “Oof. Also a long story. Mom, can we, uh, sit down, somewhere? And I can try to explain stuff?”
She nervously nods and lets them down, and Kris opens the door to their room. Kris, Susie, and Ralsei all sit down on Kris’s bed whilst Toriel sits on Asriel’s bed, her hand over her mouth and eyes darting between the three teenagers like she’s trying to come up with an answer for everything despite having none of the information.
“So. Uh. How do I explain this- the prophecy, yeah? You know what that is?”
“I- Of course I do, Kris.” She wants to ask about the feathers but she decides on just letting them talk and explain, assuming they might get to that at some point.
“Right. Stupid question. Still, um, so, there’s these things called dark worlds. If you sorta project your will into a knife or something and stab it into the ground, a fountain comes out of it, and it- it makes dark worlds. Whole separate worlds that feel like weird dreams, and objects can come to life there.”
Toriel struggles to believe them but she listens anyways.
“Ralsei is, um, a prince from one of them. I mean, this is Ralsei. He’s from a dark world in the school. Like, there’s a closet there and- y’know. It’s there.” They gesture to him as he nervously wakes and smiles and Kris continues, “if there’s three fountains, uh, it starts the roaring. Which is what’s happening right now. And darkners start to turn to stone. And the fountains turn into titans. I think that’s pretty much it?” Kris turns to Ralsei for an answer to that and he just nods at them. “And we’re… maybe those three heroes in the prophecy?”
“That can’t…” begins Toriel, but she trails off as she realizes they do fit the rubric. A human- Kris. A monster- Susie. And a prince of the dark… Ralsei. “Oh. Oh dear heavens.”
“We- we did already take down one of the titans, though,” Susie adds. “Like, just a little bit ago. We just came back here to rest and figure out what we should do next.”
/”I/ think you should stay here until this is over. It's… unsafe. You can't go back out there.”
“Wh- Mom, it literally won't be over until we do something about it.”
“Don't give me that tone, Kris.”
“...What tone?”
She doesn't answer the question, just continuing. “You three are staying here until it's safe.” As if to avoid further argument, she storms out and closes the door, locking it. Kris got up as she did, but now they’re just standing there with their mouth open, flabbergasted.
“Jeez,” mumbles Susie.
Kris immediately decides, “okay, we’re going through the window.” No one argues with them as they slide the window open. And they think for a second before taking their phone out of their pocket and lightly tossing it onto their bed. The three quickly crawl out the window as Susie picks Ralsei up again.
“That kind of barely counts as a break, actually,” says Ralsei.
Susie just sighs, “I guess it’s better than nothing?”
Kris adds, “we got at least, like, 5 or 10 minutes out of it.”
Susie shrugs, and Ralsei turns to her, “oh, um, thank you for carrying me, Susie.”
“No problem.”
Kris wonders out loud, “I wonder how long it'll be before my mom finds out and starts looking for us-”
“Uhh, prolly not long but I don't think she'll actually be chasing anyone down.”
“Yeah, probably. It's, uh, why I left my phone behind, hehah,” laughs Kris, continuing “sorry about that, also.”
“It's fine,” replies Ralsei, “I get why she's concerned, it's just… we can't exactly NOT do this. I wish she'd at least tried to talk about it.”
“Nah, she wouldn't. She's too scared of being wrong. So we don't really ever talk about anything, actually. My mom's weird about arguments. Like, full on mental gymnastics to prove the weirdest stuff. When she realizes she might have to face being wrong she just leaves the room or pulls the ‘I’m a parent so I can do what I want’ card like that.”
“Your mom needs to chill the hell out.”
“If… oh, no, that's mean, hehe,” begins Ralsei, giggling.
“Huh?” “What?” Everyone turns to him.
“I- Well, I was just wondering what if you, like… tricked her into arguing for something stupid. Like that horses aren't real. But then she realizes she's arguing for something that's objectively false and admit she's wrong.”
“Nah, she'd just implode and make a black hole or something,” says Kris.
Everyone giggles for a moment, but somewhere close-ish nearby the group, another one of the titans is visible. It actually looks rather different from the first two titans they’ve seen, more like an eyeless cervitaur with a longer unicorn-like tail yet still covered with wings and feathers similarly to the other titans. It doesn’t seem to be actually destroying anything like the other titans… actually, upon a closer look, it’s laying down. Maybe even asleep. They never really thought titans could do that.
Everyone stops in their tracks, looking up at it. “This might actually be easier to get on, Kris,” says Susie, tilting her head curiously as if that’ll help her understand what’s going on in its mind.
“Actually, yeah, this… might be way easier than I thought. Just stay nearby in case something happens, okay?”
Susie nods, and they scurry over to the titan, seemingly asleep and breathing softly as it’s curled up on the ground, surrounded by trees. Slipping their dagger out of their pocket, they almost feel bad for doing this. But it’s a titan. It’ll just end up hurting people whether it means to or wants to or not. Taking a deep breath, Kris starts to climb into its front arm, slowly walking up to approach its head. Instead of eyes, as usual, there’s the huge star-shaped shield. And praying it doesn’t wake up, they abruptly jab the dagger into it once they’re close enough. Heaps of it crumble into itself, even if it doesn’t fully collapse, but unfortunately the titan, agitated, does begin to stir with a growl. Its mouth parts a little, which they honestly forgot about so it becomes a little more threatening.
A bit startled, Kris nearly falls off but with a few more quick slashes, a bit more of the shield falls. Enough for them to jump in. It scratches at them a bit as it /is/ similar to broken glass, but they manage to fall in just as the titan begins to stand up. Their soul shines brightly once again, and shines brightly enough that it almost blinds them, barely enough to see the silhouettes of the trees. They go to cover their eyes instinctively, though… they realize they've got their other arm back. They flinch, but before they can process it, they end up falling into a tree, which sort of slows their fall to the ground. Even if softened, it hurts, obviously.
“Kris!?” Susie runs over to them, Ralsei slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes now.
They groan, “I'm alright, I'm fine,” slowly starting to get back up.
“...Woah, uh… your… you have a new arm for some reason.”
Standing up, they quickly look at it, and Ralsei, confused by Susie’s words, twists himself to look at them. His jaw drops though Kris just seems confused. “This is really weird.”
Ralsei stutters, “th- that shouldn't- defeating titans shouldn't be /doing/ that. I mean, it's connected to taking down the titans, right-?”
“Well, at this point, it's pretty clear. Yeah. I mean, I'm not really complaining,” Kris smirks.
“I'm just… a little worried what might happen if you keep doing this.”
Susie butts in, “weren't you the one that wanted em’ to keep going?” Although, Ralsei jolts at the commentary clearly feeling bad about it and Susie just mumbles quickly, “oh, uh… sorry.”
“No, no, you're right… I… still shouldn't have done that.”
“All’s well that ends well, we can talk about it after all this if you wanna.”
Ralsei nods.
Kris fully stands up now, shaking the leaves and dirt off of them like a wet dog. “At least I can probably climb that last titan easier, probably? I dunno. I think it's still weird that I randomly got a new arm.” They start to look around for the third titan just to see what it looks like in case it’s different like the one they just took down was.
“Also, um,” begins Ralsei, “a bit irrelevant but Susie and I were talking and… after you deal with the next titan, the roaring will end, which is great, but I have to be back at Castletown before then. So, uh, would it be alright if we head there first?”
Kris nods before adding, “you two can go and I’ll go find that titan while I’m at it.”
Ralsei and Susie process their words for a moment. Susie is fine with it but looks over at Ralsei in case he’s against it. He just says, “that’s alright, just please be safe.”
“I’ll try. And you too. Uh… see you later, hopefully.”
Ralsei nods, “see you later.”
“Cya! Be safe!” exclaims Susie, and she and Ralsei start towards the school, leaving Kris alone by the trees. With a sigh, they head back to town in case they can get a better look at the titan in a clearer space. As they sprint across the grass, weaving through trees, they’re still not used to their arm being back already. They swear they can still feel the odd pulsing pain somewhere. But at least it’s back. They just wish they knew why.
At some point, they run by the school, and it looks like a third of it’s been demolished like a titan came over and took a huge bite out of it. Hopefully the closet is still intact. They're about to turn their head back in the direction they're heading… but they run straight into something covered in feathers. Yelping out of shock, they step back to find the last titan gnawing on the roof of the church. It looks like one of those feathered fish-like titan spawn they'd seen, just enormous (even bigger than the other titans, too) and with plenty of legs, and of course, rather than eyes, the typical shield on its face.
They flex their hands for a moment before grabbing onto its tail, starting to climb up. Surprisingly, it hasn't noticed yet. Or maybe it has, and it just doesn't care because maybe eating a church is a more important task. It climbs a little higher, and Kris is nearly thrown off balance but they manage to stay on and continue climbing. Their arms are growing sore… they can't wait to sleep for two days straight when they're done with this.
Getting closer to the head now, they try to stand up, grabbing their dagger again. And climbing up to the top of its head, they kneel down again, and smash down on the shield…
which doesn't exactly go as planned.
It screeches and grumbles, sounding almost like an earthquake, flinginging them back to the ground. They hiss through their teeth and cough up a little blood from the impact, and not long after, they realize they've lost their dagger in being thrown halfway across town. They mutter a quick swear to themself. Hell, they're not sure exactly where /they/ are, forget the dagger. They think they see the library not too far from them…
But growling interrupts their thoughts. The titan slithers closer, mouth agape and lowering itself to the ground like a cat on the verge of pouncing. Kris is frightened back to their senses again, scrambling to at least sit up before it acts, but it's already charging forward attempting to headbutt them or something. Barely, they dodge it by rolling to the side, hands moving to shakily push themself off the ground. Before they have time to process anything, it's already snarling and running back at them.
Kris makes a risky attempt and… jumps onto it. And it works, somehow. While it's trying to figure out what happened and where they went, they slam the heel of their boot down as hard as they can, trying to break its shield- which happens much sooner than they expected. They rather ungracefully fall in, and the titan freaks out, standing on its hind legs like a meerkat and moving its head in several directions trying to shake them out.
Meanwhile Kris’s soul shines bright, even if its light oddly wavers for a moment and struggles to glow. But soon enough it's bright as usual- frankly, maybe a bit brighter. Hell, a little warm, too. But actually, maybe it's a bit too… oh.
…only mere moments later, everything hurts and everything burns. They shakily gasp for air, curling in on themself as they fall, and something abruptly splits its way through their spine. More feathers push through out of their skin and they try to hold back a scream… and they swear they've got another pair of arms splitting out of their sides. And whatever they’re going through now hurts enough to blur the moment when they hit the ground.
Everything around them seemingly melts together, the burning pain still lingering in their lungs as they struggle to piece together what's even just in front of them. A familiar warm voice like cinnamon and campfires says something in a panicked, worried tone, but they can’t do anything but tremble. Susie, they guess? If it is, Kris can barely even hear whatever she said.
Shaking, they feel something bubble and burn at their chest before- …they vomit something up. Whatever it is, it’s thick, tastes metallic and runs down their chin. There’s some words from Susie again that come across as mumbling, but at some point they’re barely able to get back on their feet, even if shakily.
They feel like there’s more added heaviness to something in their chest… but they realize they’ve got their armor on. Kris would question it if they weren’t feeling like shit, or really at all if they weren't going through absolute hell at the moment, but for now they just stumble over to Susie and let her pull them into a hug. They sort of wish Ralsei could join, but he’d headed home- to Castletown.
They weakly choke out, “I dunno if I did somethin’ cool or if I jus’ look stupid, hah…”
“Ehh, both,” says Susie, still very obviously worried but trying to swallow down her fearful tone either way. She was even confused for a moment as to whether this was actually Kris. How should she bring it up? /Should/ she even bring it up at all-? “You kinda have wings now, though.” One of her claws hover over their wings, unfolded and dragging against the dirt, but she doesn’t touch them.
“...mm, not surprising. with all the feather stuff goin’ on. m’ tired as hell.”
“Well, yeah, I can see that, dummy.”
“think my mom’s gonna be pissed about it…?”
“Probably not? She’ll prolly be more mad about the sneaking out of your window thing. But I can, like, fight her for you or something.” Kris just shrugs, starting to back away from the hug, meanwhile Susie moves their arm over her shoulder to support them. “C’mon, let’s head back to town.” Taking small, weak steps forward, the two soon get back to town, mainly aiming to get Kris back to their house. In the back of her mind Susie tries to come up with a way to explain the situation to Toriel for when she inevitably comes across her.
…
Ralsei stumbles back into the school after Susie drops him off, looking into the doorway to the closet. It’s odd how pieces of everything the three had done together now reside in something so /mundane./ A closet. A closet in a school, in some random town in Massachusetts, hidden away where no one would think to look. It feels so strange to him, clawing at his heart in a way he can’t describe- but he can’t linger here much longer. Kris will be taking down the last titan any moment now.
Jumping into the closet, he soon lands in Castletown… and finds the stone that’d been slowly consuming his ankle is crumbling away. He flinches a little, not thinking it’d be over /that/ soon, but it’s sort of a relief, especially that he won’t need to keep using magic in order to hold it off longer... Flexing his toes, he looks up to find everyone else waking from their stone prisons.
Lancer is nearby kicking off the last bit of stone as he begins to wander around, scratching the back of his head and yawning. “Oh, toothpaste boy!” He runs up to him, exclaiming excitedly while smiling for whatever reason, “we almost died!!”
“I- that’s… that’s nice, Lancer.”
He asks, “uhh, what happened?”
Ralsei thought it was rather obvious. “The apocalypse?” he says.
“Ohhh. Cool.” Lancer fidgets with his hands, looking around him again, before continuing, “umm, I’m gonna go hang out with Mr. Tenna.” And he runs off.
Ralsei just sighs and continues his walk to the castle, just trying to think of what to do next. He has an urge to help Kris and Susie with the aftermath of the roaring, but… for some reason he’s still having to remind himself that he can’t just go back to the light world like he could before. Maybe for now he’ll just draw what the stars looked like before he forgets. Something better than the soulless descriptions and diagrams of constellations in his countless textbooks.
He arrives at his room and immediately grabs a notebook from under his bed alongside a pen from somewhere before sitting on his bed, opening his notebook, and beginning to draw. As he doodles little stars and lines with the colors he has, he begins to think. The roaring was supposed to doom them all. It was supposed to be an unavoidable storm destined to kill all his friends and leave every darkner a statue. If you dared to take the wrong step, you’d be set unto a path of suffering.
They weren’t supposed to win. But they did. Kris and Susie, or more especially Susie, sticked to their words of punching fate in the face and they pushed through the storm until they found the sunshine after.
And Ralsei begins to wonder- if Susie and Kris can break out of their roles, does he have to be a prince? Could he even be a-
…No. No, no, no, he shouldn’t. He can’t. Dreams are for lightners. And he's destined to be a prince.
He breaks from his drawing and tears come to his eyes, much to Ralsei’s annoyance. He just wipes them away and continues drawing stars, trying to distract himself with something else.
Right.
The stars…
Maybe someday he'll get to see the stars with Kris and Susie. Not when there's an apocalypse going on, but they'll sit on the grass together on a blanket, maybe they'll have some kinds of pastries like strawberry cupcakes or buttery warm biscuits, and they'll look up at the stars glimmering soft in the sky. And there won't be dread creeping in the back of his mind. Everything will be okay for once.
Maybe someday.