Monster Age

by GR Griffin

  “Can I get you something to eat?” Grill offered. “A drink, perhaps? It can get so dry in these parts.”

  Undyne was glancing at the dancers at the other end of the room. “I’m fine,” she said. Some of them were looking back. It was difficult to tell what emotions their eyes were portraying, it could have been either dread or pity. “Why are they dancing?”

  “Because I wanted them to, they’re my wives,” Grill answered. He jammed his little finger into his ear and jiggled it about, getting at a pesky itch. “Their sole purpose is to fulfil my every wish.”

  Undyne frowned. “That sounds a lot like slavery to me.”

  “Yes, it does take a lot of bravery.” The grizzly bear pulled his finger out, inspected the tip, and then rubbed his paws together, his rings clanged. “Now, what would you like to ask me about?”

  “First thing’s first,” Undyne said, facing him, “where am I?”

  “You’re… in my manor.”

  “No, no, I mean…” Undyne pointed down, toward the ground. “Where is here? What’s the name of the place we’re in right now?”

  The fat lord leaned back, raising an eyebrow. “My dear girl, this is the Oasis of the Outerworld. The magical island, thousands upon thousands of feet above the Earth. Don’t you know that?”

  Undyne turned away, allowing the new information to sink in. Toriel was right. She had reached the Land between Heaven and Earth, and it had a name: the Outerworld.

  “Is something wrong?” asked Grill.

  “No, I’m fine. It’s just that I’m kinda new here, to be honest.”

  Lord Grill paused. “You’re new to the Oasis?”

  “No, I’m new to this entire place.” There was another pause in the conversation. Undyne needed to be more specific. “I’m new to the Outerworld, if that’s what you call this place.”

  The lord of Manor Bjornliege nodded, finally getting it. “Really? How interesting. We don’t get many new faces around here. Actually, we don’t get any new faces at all. I’m sure you’ll find a place where you can fit in around here.”

  “I’m not exactly here by choice and I don’t plan on sticking around,” Undyne said. “I’m looking for a friend of mine.”

  “I have plenty of friends on these islands.” Grill adjusted himself in his seat. His wives rolled their eyes at that statement. “Connections, too. I’m sure I can pull in a few favours.”

  “That’s what I was hoping, especially since it was one of your people who brought them here in the first place. Have you heard of a human called Fleck?”

  Lord Grill pulled a face like he had heard a humorous joke. “A human? Here?” He snorted a hard chuckle. “Don’t be silly, girl, there hasn’t been one of those around here since, well, ever.”

  “You sure?” Undyne gave the lord a quick description of Fleck. “Nothing rings a bell?”

  “If there was such a thing around these parts, I would be the first to know.”

  “So, they’re not here and this had all been a waste of my time.” Undyne went to stand up. “I better keep looking.” Grill grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her back down. “Hey, what’s the big idea?”

  “What’s the rush? Why must you gallivant off so soon?” The bear leaned closer and propped his head on his elbow. “There’s still so much that you can learn here.”

  “I’ve learned enough, thank you very much.”

  She went to rise again, but the fat lord gripped her arm. “In that case, I wouldn’t mind learning a little about you.” His grip tightened, feeling the density of her bicep. “I mean, you’ve got such a strong body; I can see a six-pack under that tank top.”

  Undyne went rigid. Every nerve in her body tingling with disgust. “What?” was all that she managed to get out.

  Lord Grill continued. “And that hair. There’s something about red hair that I just adore, and I’ve never seen a shade as fiery as yours.”

  Innocent until proven guilty, Undyne thought. She may not have been a soldier anymore, but her code remained strong. The sweat broke on her brow as she tried to combat all thoughts of violent tendencies toward this monster. Innocent until proven guilty. Guilty until proven innocent – I mean – innocent until proven guilty.

  “And that eyepatch. There’s something mysterious about it… and I can’t help but find that… so very, very attractive.” The noble leaned in close now. The minty freshener on his breath, mingled with meat, was so overwhelming that it could take down an elephant. “I could just gobble you up right now, sweetheart.”

  Undyne jumped off the couch. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” She squinted hard at Lord Grill. “Are you hitting on me?”

  Lord Grill laid across most of the seat, halfway between sitting and lying. “I’d wouldn’t be honest if I said I wasn’t,” he said. “You’re a rare work of art and I want you all to myself.”

  “You can forget it, pal,” Undyne argued back, “I already have a girlfriend.”

  The wily grin on Lord Grill’s face shrank as his features slackened. He slowly rose, shaking, breathing out of tune, eyes wide with disbelief. He struggled to speak: “A… a-a g… gi-gir… girl… f-friend?”

  “Yeah, a girlfriend.” Undyne proudly pointed her thumb at herself. “This lady is off-lim—”

  Suddenly, Lord Grill fell to his knees and gripped Undyne by the thighs. “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE?”

  This sudden change caught Undyne completely off guard. “H-hey! What’re you doing? Get off me!”

  “You’re the one! You must be the one, the woman I’ve been waiting my whole life for,” the lord of Bjornliege shrieked. “We must get married, right here, right now!”

  “WHAT?” Undyne screamed. The pupil on her eye shrank into a pinpoint. “MARRIAGE? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FREAKING MIND?”

  The lord rocketed to his feet. He pulled from his vest every single bell he had and clanged all eight of them at the same time. The doors opened and all servants, with the exception of the doorman, Jim, entered. “Take all her measurements! Prepare her a dress! Prepare me a suit! Prepare the grand hall! Prepare the banquet! Prepare the invitations! Prepare everything! I want everything to be perfect for this occasion!”

  Without warning, all eight servants descended upon Undyne, armed with tape measures like they were about to restrain her with them. Without her permission, they began to size her up. Four of them measured her shoulders to her wrists. Two were in front and the other two behind, measuring her body and legs.

  “Get your hands off me! I’m marrying no one!” Undyne screams fell on deaf ears. She tried to pull away, but the servants were relentless. “Will anyone just listen to me?”

  “And as for all of you,” Grill hissed, pointing a sharp finger at his harem, “permanent re-education, rehabilitation, and rehab!” The harem began to cry, their worst nightmare coming to light, and there was nothing they could do to stop it. “Guards, get them out of my sight!”

  As instructed, the two guards stationed by the door advanced on the wives. They both pulled out leather whips, their lengths spiralling on the floor. They ordered them to move, and when they did not move fast enough, one of them cracked the whip at them, striking the floor dangerously close to their heels.

  As the whip snapped, Undyne snapped. She had seen enough. “THAT’S IT!” More importantly, she had enough.

  Everything kicked off in the span of two seconds. Undyne threw her right elbow back and then the fist forwards, knocking the wind out of the guts of those servants, followed by a swift elbow to the throat then a strike to the groin of the two on her left. She grabbed the arms of the servants in front and tossed them over her shoulders, slamming them into the guys behind and sending all four of them careening into the double doors, breaking it off their hinges. Undyne caught the second guard as his were raising his strong arm, ready to strike the women. She materialised a magical spear in her palm and hurled it. The spear flew straight and caught the sleeve of the guard. He flew straight across the room and crashed face first into
the wall, his sleeve snagged on the tip.

  The other guard staggered back. “What the—?”

  Lord Grill swung around in shock. “What is the meaning of—?”

  He did not get time to finish his sentence before Undyne rushed over to him and pushed him in his fat belly, knocking him flat. She willed another spear and brought it down between his legs, pinning his cape to the floor.

  “You’ll stay down if you know what’s go for you,” she snarled through sharp teeth.

  “G-guards! Guards,” he screamed as loud as he could, so loud that all four corners of his manor could hear him. What was once maddening love he held for the girl had turned into maddening terror. “Help me! She’s gone crazy!”

  Undyne had gone crazy alright, like a shark that had detected blood in the water. The second guard with the whip rushed toward her, reeled his arm back, and then let it rip. He was fast, but Undyne was faster. She caught the whip end, inches away from taking her remaining eye out, and gave it a mighty tug. The guard flew across the room and smashed into Undyne’s outstretched arm. He made two complete revolutions before hitting the ground.

  Twenty of Lord Grill’s armed units stormed in, stepping over the remains of the door and the four servants. The scene was already set: their lord pinned to the floor, eight reeling servants, two downed guards, twenty-three wives – enthralled in the sudden turn of the tables – and one enraged woman. They knew who their target was. Undyne snatched the whip and whipped it around the ankle of the guard she had just clotheslined. She took the whip in both hands and swung the guard around the room and launched him into the squad, knocking most of them flat. Out of all twenty guards, only five were still standing.

  The five stepped past the others and formed a meek line. Undyne stood there with her angry face, and then cracked a smile. Five against one, it almost didn’t seem fair… for them. Above her, six orbs began to glow. The look on her face said, “Make the first move… I dare you.”

  “Don’t just stand there, you oafs,” Grill yelled. “Stop her!” He sounded more like a lost puppy than a mighty lord.

  The row of guards went to charge, their war cries bellowing from their throats, when more magical spears shot from the orbs, embedding themselves at the guards’ feet. All of them stopped, their weapons quavering.

  “This is not what I signed up for,” one of them cried, dropping his sword.

  “Run away!” They turned to run and ended up tripped over their own colleagues. They started picking themselves off the floor and dragging themselves out.

  Undyne chuckled darkly. “Rookies.”

  This sudden switch in power acted as a rallying cry for the twenty-three wives. They rushed to the tables, procured the heftiest, toughest pieces of meat they could find, and pounced on Lord Grill. Lord Grill tried to defend himself to no avail. He begged for mercy, but they would show him the same amount of mercy he had shown them – none whatsoever. Undyne stood back and watched, allowing the harem to vent. It’s good to express your emotions, it does the soul plenty of good.

  After about five straight minutes of endless punishment, Undyne finally stepped forward and parted the ladies away from the lord. “Okay, girls, I think that’s enough for now,” she said. “Why don’t you let me take it from here? Trust me, you don’t want to be here when I’m through with him.”

  Since the harem viewed Undyne as their messiah, they took her advice and started to leave, but not before saying some words of praise. “Thank you for everything,” one said; “You’re totally my hero,” another hollered; “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to do that,” a third added, giving the bear one final slap.

  Alone with the disgraced black and blue grizzly, Undyne dragged him to his feet, tearing his cape down the middle. She stared him straight in the eyes and shouted, “Now you listen to me, Grill, you’re the biggest slice of scum I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting! You’re fat, loud, sleazy, lazy, creepy, vulgar, womanising, obnoxious, and above all, cruel. I’ve met some shady characters in my time, but believe me, you take the cake!” The poison in her tone dropped a notch. “But as much as I detest you, I can’t help but feel sorry for you. Everyone has a life and yours has been more privileged than others, but you’ve allowed it to corrupt you, to turn you into a slob. I think you can do more with your life, which is why I’m going to teach you a valuable lesson.”

  “A lesson?” Lord Grill struggled to say. He could not understand why she was being so civil and not pounding his face in right now. “What kind of lesson?”

  “I’m going to take a wild guess and say that you’ve never cooked a single thing in your life,” Undyne said, followed by a scheming grin. “And speaking of cake, how about we start there?”

  * * *

  All the servants, all the guards, and all the wives had gathered outside Bjornliege Manor, just as the heroine suggested. They could only dream what forms of nasty punishments were going on inside. They only had the stranger’s booming voice to go on.

  “First, we’ll put the eggs in the bowl. Imagine the eggs as your spears, which you will rain down upon your foes like a tremendous, uh, rain. Go ahead and put them in.” Pause. “Don’t crack two of them open, just chuck ‘em all in there!” Pause. “Don’t tell me they’re too heavy! Watch me! NGGGAAAAAAHHHHHH!” The cracking of many eggs erupted. Egg yolks splattered along the insides of the high windows. “At least some of them went in the bowl. Let’s move on.”

  “Next, put flour and butter in and stir them all up. As I told a wimpy loser friend once: the more you stir, the better it is. And I’ll tell you that friend was nowhere near as wimpy-ish or as loser-ish as you! Start stirring, buster! Harder, I say. Harder! HARDER!” The mixture sloshed onto the windows, mingling in with the yolks. “That was too hard. You’ve got no control.”

  “Now, stick it in the oven for thirty minutes at two-hundred degrees, or for one minute at six-thousand degrees!” The metallic slam of an oven door rang out. “Wow, this is some fancy stuff. How high does it go up t—?”

  Bjornliege Manor exploded. One second the manor was there, tall and strong, the next, shattering into pieces. The walls collapsed and the roof collapsed and dust, soot, and ash collapsed, enveloping everything. When the dust cleared, nothing remained except for scatterings of burnt wood, several fires, and the blackened figures of Undyne and Lord Grill.

  The many wives cheered, happy to be free of their husband’s oppression. The guards and servants, on the other hand, were just happy that the beating stopped.

  Jim, the doorman, sighed a heavy sigh. “Looks like I’ll need to find another job…” He pulled his nametag off and dropped it.

  The lord of the pile of black ash coughed, puffing black clouds into the air. “Can I confess something, if you promise you won’t kill me?” he asked.

  “Sure, whatever,” Undyne replied, her anger having subsided by a margin.

  “I wouldn’t mind meeting your girlfriend one of these days.”

  Undyne worked up the will to smile. Her teeth stood out prominently on her blackened face. “If you clean up your act, then I might just introduce you.” She glanced around what was left of the manor. Nothing but charred, smouldering remains and fires. “Sorry about the mess, but I’m sure you understand why I did it.”

  “I understand,” Grill responded, “it’s just a shame we don’t have any shelter from the rain.”

  “Rain?” Undyne asked. She turned to the clear sky. “What rain?”

  Grill pulled up what was left of his sleeve and rubbed the soot off the cracked face of a wristwatch. At least the second hand still functioned. “Three… two… one…”

  Out of nowhere, rain began to fall from the sky, which started as quickly as turning on a shower. The cool water ran down the two, washing off the ash. The fires were doused.

  “The daily rain,” Grill explained, smiling. “One hour of rain every afternoon. On time, every time.”

  Chapter 9: Don't Mind the Rain

  The cab
in roof rattled under the rain; bumpy and loud, but at the same time, quite relaxing. Clear rainwater streaked down the windows; the sharp contrast between the cool exterior and warm interior condensed sharply against the corners. It rained yet there were no clouds, sunlight streaked across the walls.

  The fire below the mantelpiece was inviting, burning at a pleasant temperature. Fleck basked in its glow while sitting upon the stool, wrapped in a towel and a robe that was five times too big for them. They were dry, but their clothes were not, which hung from a line above the fire, allowing the heat to get at them. The damp outside mixed with the scent of warm wood reminded Fleck of Christmas.

  Speaking of Christmas, if Fleck made it out of this alive, they were determined to make their first twenty-fifth of December with their monster buddies one to remember. So they would at least have some happy memories to work with if they ever got roped into a third monster kingdom in outer space or a fourth one under the sea.

  Previously, Sam an’ Rita went out into their patch of farmland and picked some ripe produce for them to enjoy during the hour-long downpour. What they returned with caught Fleck off-guard; carrots, potatoes, onions, cabbages, apples, grapes, a loaf of bread, a salami sausage, a hunk of Swiss cheese, a big bar of chocolate, and a bottle of milk – all fresh off the vine.

  Sam explained to the outsider that everything, and he meant everything, in the Outerworld was grown from the ground. One-hundred percent natural and innocent, no animals were harmed in the making of their meals. Farming in and of itself was not hard either. If someone wanted to grow something, all they had to do was find a piece of soil, plant something in it, give it some water, leave it in the sun for a bit, and – congratulations – you were a master farmer. Of course, while farming was not that hard, it does still take a degree of know-how and patience, which many residents of the Outerworld do not have.