Monster Age: A Fantasy Epic

by GR Griffin

  Asgore felt a pang of hurt at that statement, being downgraded from dreemgoat to associate.

  The Command Room had that worn in, vintage feel one would find in a World War Two exhibit. Wooden desks and black, leather chairs. The walls covered with chalkboards and corkboards, tagged with top secret documents. How did they know they were top secret? Because it was all written in red ink on the headers, as well as titled in big letters above the boards themselves.

  Three more cat monsters sat at the desk, fawning over papers and pages. The centre Bob – because let’s face it, that’s what his name was – said, “We are facing a great dilemma at this moment in time, but we will offer any support we can. I am Bob, the founder of Bob.” He gestured to the cat on his left. “This is our Secretary of State, Bob.” Then to his right. “And this is the Secretary of Treasury, Bob.” Despite their titles, they all had the same fluffy hairstyle and civilian shirts. Nothing about them screamed ‘important.”

  Asgore whispered in Toriel’s ear. “He’s the founder? How can they tell?” Toriel brought her hand up to her mouth and snorted back a giggle, obviously trying to hide it from him, but he heard it. Just hearing a peep of that small sound made him feel fuzzy. “What sort of problem are you facing?” he asked the cats.

  “You don’t know?” The Secretary of State – what was his name again? – bellowed, disbelieving what he just heard. “Haven’t you read the news? We got a human on the loose. A human, here in the Outerworld! The first one in hundreds of years! We’re all doomed.”

  Toriel’s eyes flashed. “A human?” she and Asgore uttered in unison.

  “Relax,” responded the Secretary of Treasury, the level-headed one of the bunch, mistaking Toriel’s reaction for fear. “There is only one, and we are miles away. We have plenty of time to ratify that open-door policy.”

  Toriel approached the table and brought her white hands down on it, grabbing their attention. “Which human are you talking about? What is their name? What do they look like?”

  Bob, the founder, pulled a sheet of paper from out his hair, unfolded it, and slid it across the table. “See for yourself.”

  Toriel snatched the half-folded paper from off the table. Asgore looked over her shoulder as she pulled it flat. The picture of their adopted child was the first thing to shock them, the second thing was the word wanted written in big bold letters over Fleck’s head.

  “Oh no,” Toriel cried. “Fleck!” She felt Asgore’s hand clamp on her shoulder, and it was at that moment that she knew that his pain was the same as hers.

  They frantically skimmed the writing. It was the only shred of information they could go on, the only straws they could grasp at. Recent escape from Highkeep Enclave. Hiding within the Plain-plain. One-million cloud coin reward. Report any information to members of the Monster Military. The Empire wishes the suspect to be captured alive. Payment will be rewarded after the human or soul is within the grounds of Castle Highkeep. Master Scribe Rickard.

  The Bobs found their distress in reading the poster most suspicious. “You know that human?” queried Bob, the founder of Bob.

  “Yes, they are my child,” Toriel said without taking her eyes off the wanted poster.

  “Our child,” Asgore corrected.

  “What do you mean, your child?” asked Bob, the Secretary of State.

  “Our child!” Toriel threw her hands down. “Fleck is in our custody!” she hissed through her teeth. “You took them away from us, and now we want them back!”

  “Monsters adopting humans? What had this Outerworld come to?” Secretary of State Bob jumped from his seat and paced the right side of the command room. “Why, such as act will surely be against any and all laws of our land! You are enemies to the Emperor and his empire!”

  “Who is your emperor?” interrogated Asgore. For a rare moment in his life, there was anger in his voice. “Where is Highkeep Enclave? Where is Castle Highkeep? I would very much like to give this guy a piece of my mind.”

  “You honestly think we’ll tell you criminals where our ruler is? You will never find him, not even in his giant castle on the centre island.” The founder of Bob leapt up onto the table. “You are in league with the human threat! That makes you our sworn enemy! We shall deliver you to Castle Highkeep ourselves! Raise the alarm!”

  There was a pause in the action. A moment passed, but no alarm bell was rung.

  The Secretary of Treasury gathered everyone’s attention with a throaty cough. “Is now a good time to say that we don’t have any alarms?”

  The other two Bob’s span to face him. “What?” muttered the founder himself. “Why not?”

  Bob the treasurer pushed his chair back, reached under the table, retrieved an empty shoebox, and dropped it onto the top. On second inspection, the box was not empty; there were two coins and a hairball inside. “This is all we have left over since we constructed the embassy. Do you know how expensive it is to fit fake faux carpet?” His question was met with silence. “Not to mention run an army? We don’t have enough to buy a shoelace.”

  Further silence followed, however, the grave look on Bob’s face told them that he was not finished. “And look who we decided to appoint as our secretary of defence.” The treasurer span around to the door on the left wall. “Get in here!”

  The door creaked open, and the Secretary of Defence rolled out on squeaking wheels, behind a cardboard box with their title misspelled with the finest children’s paint money could scrimp on. “hOi, im temmie!” The Secretary of Defence announced.

  The treasure gave a lazy point toward the boss monsters. “Attack,” he commanded half-heartedly.

  Temmie reached under the box and pulled out a dozen balls of crumped up paper. A couple rolled onto the floor. Each one had wepon written on it. “tem… deeploy…” They grabbed one and held it high. “WEAPON OF MAS DESTRUCION! Tis all tem can aford.” Temmie began to lob the crumpled paper toward the goat couple, who stood there in stunned silence. The first projectile covered a whopping two feet, barely coming anywhere near the intended targets. The second went further by about a centimetre. While the volley continued to miss them by miles, Asgore and Toriel shared a glance. Eventually, Temmie had ran out of ammunition, it was all in a messy line between them and their targets. “Temmie… out of wepons. Wen do tem get payz?”

  The treasurer took the coins from the box and hurled them at the wheels of Temmie’s trolley. “That’s all you get… ever,” was his answer. “Next time, try card instead of paper.”

  “Okey… TACTICAL RETREAT!” Temmie grabbed their portable desk and rolled themself through the door from which they came, one foot on the trolley and the other as the accelerator.

  After the door slammed shut, all eyes reverted back to the founder of Bob himself. The Secretary of Treasury had made his point. They were undertrained, underpaid and understaffed to even handle a full-on invasion, let alone deal with the two individuals who got from the outskirts of the walls to their office in less than five minutes.

  There was one move Bob had left up his sleeve. The only one that would successfully allow him to save face. “Would you like the directions to Castle Highkeep written down?”

  “Yes, please.” Toriel nodded. The spectacle before so bizarre, she had forgotten to be angry.

  Asgore added, “That would be wonderful, thank you.”

  Bob walked on all fours across the table. “I’ll get a pen and paper…”

  Chapter 14: The Not-So-Sweet Escape

  “Ad…vis…or…”

  Fleck opened their eyes with a start, the floor rumbled faintly. For a moment, they had completely forgotten where they were, thinking themself still in the dream world living out another vision of things to come. They sat up, blinking several times in the dim light, unsure of their surroundings. This was not their bedroom, far from it.

  Eventually, the reality that their train ride of dreams had come to an end sank in. They remembered where they were, and how it came to be. Resting their back against
the padded headboard, Fleck checked the clock on the television: 07:28 – not exactly the time they wanted to rise on a Sunday when they would rather wrap the sheets tighter and snooze the morning away. The last day before they needed to be up early for school.

  That familiar feeling from the Underground tickled the back of Fleck’s mind, the same one that made them sigh. They were stuck in world that they were not a part of, that did not know them, where any one of the inhabitants would benefit greatly from seeing them dead, and where making friends was harder than it sounded. The empty feeling of isolation sank in as Fleck sank deeper into the lumpy pillow. None of Toriel’s gentle, uncontracted speech; no Asgore to say howdy to. No social media to read Alphys’s forty-two updates and Sans’s twenty-nine ‘so cool’ comments on something Papyrus wrote.

  Fleck needed something, anything to stave off the seclusion – some noise, at least. They reached for the remote left on the bedside from last night and turned the television on to catch some Sunday morning shows, maybe a cartoon or two. They skipped over a couple reruns and hovered on a news channel; the anchor-woman informing the folks at home that paranormal hunter Aaron had located surreal ghosts. Turned out, he was the next special guest on Sunday Morning Brunch with a Killer Robot.

  Apparently, Mettaton liked the idea of a weekly show so much that he decided to create seven of them. The remaining five included: Monday Afternoon Lunch with a Killer Robot; Tuesday Afternoon Dinner with a Killer Robot; Wednesday Evening Tea with a Killer Robot; Thursday Evening Supper with a Killer Robot; and Friday Midnight that cookie you really should not eat because you’re on a diet and your trying to cut down on your carbs but you really, really, really, really, really wanted it and you lack any sort of willpower (a.k.a. snack) with a Killer Robot. Take a moment to get your breath back.

  They were already fed up after five minutes of flicking. After shutting off the television and jumping out of bed, they parted the curtains. Pink light flooded inside. The train station had not upped and wandered off during the night. The morning brought out the colour in its white bricks, without the orange glow of streetlights.

  It was at that moment, Fleck had an idea. They needed a plan. They looked over at the leaflets laid on the desk. Skimming through them yielded attractions, museums, bars and restaurants, and the local train times. Fleck plucked it out, disrupting the delicate pattern in which they were presented. It was a foldout leaflet; opening it up presented a sizeable overview of the Plain-plain, broken up with a ragged spider web of different coloured threads – accompanied by arrival and departure times.

  Fleck located where they were right now, Parfocorse, south off the centre, lit up like a rainbow. North was their direction. Moving upward, they found one dotted station at the most northern point, labelled Winter’s Edge. From there, it was a stone’s throw away from the bridge that connected the Plain-plain to Ice Island. Finding possible routes between Parfocorse and Winter’s Edge, they found a track that travelled east before twisting upward around the north-eastern ridge, which was highlighted in red for some reason. The next train there was scheduled to arrive at nine o’clock. The red, digital clock under the television read 07:40. They had time, and now they had a plan.

  Their stomach grumbled, ready to take on a hearty breakfast; Fleck knew just the place. They folded the leaflet into their pocket, collected their money and room key off the counter and went straight out the door, leaving the bed for the cleaner to take care of. Nothing much could be said as they followed the hallway, rounded the stairs, and squeaked on the shiny floor, other than it did not look much different in the daylight. As they passed the utility room on the landing, a blue suited janitor pulled out a keychain, flicked through them, and inserted a chunky, worn key into the slot. At first, it did not turn. He jangled it about until it did, clicking the door open.

  As they reached the revolving door, a middle-aged monster – an unfinished symphony, an open book with half the notes written – with a bushy moustache, and bowler hat, and wheeling a hefty suitcase behind himself, pushed their wide frame in sideways. Fleck slipped into the opposite opening and exited at the same time that he entered. However, at that short moment in which they passed, the monster glanced oddly at Fleck. His expression blank like paper – on his paper face – the mouth agape in dumbstruck awe. Fleck looked back upon reaching the outside, and saw that the monster was still looking at them, as if he had seen them before.

  The early morning was cool with that crisp springtime sensation lingering in the air. The intensity of the asphalt smell grew as the sun slowly baked it. The town of Parfocorse had metamorphosed overnight, transforming from swanky and party-fuelled into quiet and presentable, like how the average college student operated. Fleck retraced their steps, hoping that they could find their way back to Sweet and Sour’s before they starved to death. Along that way, several people were hunched around a streetlight, another around the display window of a barbershop. Whispers were passed amongst themselves. Someone was either getting the greatest haircut in the Outerworld or the worst.

  They found Sweet and Sour’s and entered, have checked the opening times beforehand to see if they were in business yet. They were. Like last night, a waiter greeted them at the entrance and delivered them to the counter. Another angsty clerk with the glazed look in the eyes was about to ask for their order when an angry customer – a bull – butted in and slammed a tray of food down.

  “Hey!” the customer yelled, “Just what kind of swill you serving me?”

  The clerk gave the bacon and egg muffin, resting on an opened wrapper, a once-over. Two clear bites had been taken out of it. His mouth formed a hard line. “Isn’t this the same thing you’ve ordered every Sunday for the past ten years?”

  The irate customer flared his nostrils, exhaling two fumes of white steam, looking like he was about to charge. “It’s rotten and undercooked! It tastes like it’s been scraped off someone’s bathroom floor!”

  “Sir, the chefs are incredibly careful with the food they prepare,” the clerk assured in a calm manner, but the creases in his forehead suggested he had something else on his mind. “This bacon and egg muffin will have been cooked and prepared in exactly the same way as all the others, but if you are not happy, I can get you a replacement.”

  The clerk might as well have waved a red flag in the customer’s face. “You’ve got the memory of a goldfish, son…” he said, then turned to the goldfish monster who was sat one table away. “No offense.” Back to the clerk. “This is the replacement! I’ve tried two muffins and they both taste the same, horrible!” He pushed the tray to the clerk. “Here, you try it.”

  The clerk’s chest rose and fell as he sighed dejectedly. He picked up the muffin, located a place that had not been touched by the customer’s teeth, and took a big bite, getting a mouthful of everything that comprised it. His jaw completed two chews then stopped. His face crumpled, his mouth opened – revealing the mush inside for all to see – and out escaped a groan of disgust.

  “Told you so,” the customer said, smiling with morbid satisfaction as the clerk rushed to a nearby sink and started spitting it all out.

  Another clerk, a barrel-chested beaver, stepped over to replace the out-of-order staff member. “We’re deeply sorry, sir.” With a few button presses, he opened the cash register. “We’ll issue you a full refund.”

  “You better,” was all the customer replied with. He took back the twenty coins he had spent and stormed out of Sweet and Sour’s before the clerk could wish him a nice day. In his stride, he looked like he could smash the entire door down, but retained some sense to use the handle.

  With nobody in front, Fleck stepped forward. Heeding the warnings, they decided not go for the bacon and egg muffin, and instead opted for the breakfast bagel bargain bucket bonanza – try saying that five times fast. A freshly baked bagel filled with ham and cream cheese, with a crispy hash brown and an orange juice, bucket sold separately. All for ten cloud coins. Fleck forked it over, now having tw
enty coins remaining in the pouch – enough to buy what the customer before was having, if they wanted to join the puking party. They had their food on the tray in the average fast food speed.

  As they took their meal and headed for the table they ate at yesterday, which was vacant, they overheard the chefs from the fast food side arguing in the kitchen. “I don’t understand it. I cooked it like that for twenty-five years and nobody has ever complained. Now we get four people in a row returning their muffins.”

  “Two people weren’t too happy with their Eggs Benedict either,” added a chef from the opposite side. “It’s tasted fine every time I’ve made them before, but I sampled some ten minutes ago and nearly puked my guts out. Just like Jethro is right now.”

  “We got a call from our buddies over in the Oasis. They’ve had some similar incidents. What is going on here?” To which none of them had the answer, but the phone rang again. More bad news.

  The human child started their breakfast by unscrewing the cap off the juice bottle and taking a sip. Fleck never thought this could actually be deemed as a complaint, but the orange juice was too orangey. It was like sucking on a lemon, but instead of a lemon, it was an orange – an orange with the sour intensity of a lemon. The food did not fare much better: the cheese was too cheesy, the ham too hammy, and the hash brown too… brownie? Fleck thought they were mistaken. They took another nibble of the hash brown, it tasted exactly like a brownie. As for the rest of the food, it was not like Fleck had the money to order something else, nor did they want to burden the already stressed employees, so they would just have to power through with what they had.

  Just as Fleck took their sixth bite out of the bagel, the door slammed open and in rushed a monster, holding a piece of paper in his hand. His sudden, loud entrance earned the attention of everyone at their seats. He charged straight to a monster sitting two tables away from the human, whom they could see from out the corner of their eye.