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captainatin · 7 years

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Magician’s resolve chapter 6: Preparations

It had been a full day since Lailani had been captured, she was forced to wait in her cell but Asgore came to her prison every few hours to check up on her. Word had already spread through the camp that the human was not to be executed or harmed in any way yet she was still concerned about all of the monsters making an effort to pass by and look at her with suspicious glances. The one advantage to the mind numbing boredom was a chance to see what life looked like for these strange sorts of people, it didn’t matter if they were a talking dog or a pile of sludge because it was all new and fascinating to her. From her view point she could see a group of skeletons hammering away at a battering ram in hopes of completing it before the next day came, it was quite astonishing to see how the sacks of bones worked together as they gave each other literal hands to help keep things in place and make the process go smoothly.

The ram itself wasn’t very interesting, simply a massive cylinder of wood that was coated in some strange kind of metal that seemed to glisten with all sorts of magical energies that were completely foreign to her limited knowledge of the topic; she then recalled how little Desmond has spoken to her about when it came to magic outside of her signature ability. Metal had always clicked with her, it was simple and easy to understand, there was no surprise, nothing that could go poorly if she hadn’t thought of it. Caolos-Tonn had to be careful with his power at first so he wouldn’t rupture his own eardrums; nothing that Lailani could do would have such unforeseeable side effects, at least that’s what she figured since it was simply the ability to manipulate metal to her will. I wonder what kind of enchantments are on that? I don’t think there are many magicians with that as their specialty, Caolos is pretty good but that’s not his main thing. These monsters must be incredible to do something this complex with their weak magical energy. She clenched the cold steel bars as she continued to stare in amazement. I wonder if Impact is working with them, I don’t think I’ve seen him since last night. I doubt he’s that tall broad one. She chuckled to herself as she began to analyze each of the workers as they walked around to finish different tasks or to fetch more materials. Oh, maybe he’s that one with the really small body in comparison to the head! That’d be hilarious! She grinned as her eyes shifted to the guard dogs who rotated shifts every once in awhile. It was hard to recognize if any of them were the dogs she had met the previous day due to the fact that there could be any number of huskies and golden shepherds in the camp. She watched as one of them idly batted at a butterfly that was floating around their nose only to miss with every annoyed swing, the second guard dog was even less diligent as he was gnawing on a bone from an ordinary chicken. Life was strange to the human girl, all of them seemed to run around and do normal things that humans did other than making games out of every trivial task like juggling wooden beams on the way to build the ram or finding words that started with the same letter of the last word’s ending. A water droplet could be heard falling to the stone cold floor of the cave. It all seemed rather peaceful except for the few times Grimgore passed through to check up on the progress, they all seemed to respect him and love him as a leader, yet none of them seemed to be personally attached to him. From the girl’s observations he had no friends and he had no one he talked to as an equal, he wasn’t a cruel master by any means. The hulking behemoth of a goatman was a great leader, he just seemed to be more grumpy than he was intimidating at this point. The girl’s fear for him slowly diminished over the span of her day that she spent gazing out over what they considered to be a normal day in the life, preparing for the next battle in an attempt to take something from the humans for a change. Lailani frowned upon the desire for war but she also acknowledged the lack of a better option, she realized that there was no way to talk Grimgore out of his plan. She could feel the hatred burning within him, the feelings of worthlessness as they fought a losing battle caused by the very nature of their souls. It didn’t take much thought to realize there was no way the monsters could win, their weaker souls covered every hard fought victory in the white powder that was their fleeting existences. It was sad to think that all the smiling faces she saw would likely be purged like a disease, massacred into a more morbid type of snowfall. The girl toyed with the idea of the monsters winning but soon let the delusion slip away from her thoughts, it wasn’t that it was impossible, but the hope would make things more painful when they lost. It was in that moment where she felt trapped and useless, she considered why she was doing all of this and how she had hurt people that she knew. They were humans, and humans are awful, in general we’re horrible people that are simply terrible. We don’t deserve to have stronger souls if we’re just going to screw everything up all the time. That’s all humans ever do; find new ways to screw up and make life hell for other people. I wonder what will happen after all of this ends….it’s going to end soon anyways so what’s the point in me doing all this? What do I gain from helping the monsters? Moral high ground? A clear conscious? She let out a loud sigh as she watched the skeletons finish the battering ram. No, I’ve hurt too many people to be okay with this. The girl bit her lip as Asgore came into view with a pair of teacups, he was wobbly and cringing as he stared at the cups that rattled in his grip; it was quite amusing to see how serious he was about not spilling a single drop from the flowery cups. Lailani could tell that the young prince was distracted, not just from the cups in his hands. “Hey, Asgore!” She called out to him and waved as she gripped the bars tightly and leaned into them, a bright smile stretched from ear to ear only to vanish in an instant; she noted the monsters that glared and cast odd looks in her general direction. The human girl frowned as she backed away from the bars and retreated towards the back wall of the cell that met her skin with a chilling sensation. I wonder if they’ll ever forgive me, I know that Asgore will but that’s different. Somehow we resonated….whatever the hell that means. Monster souls and human souls can’t resonate so that’s impossible. Is there some other kind of resonating that Desmond never told me about? She bit her lip as she pondered for a moment. The girl was snapped out of her daze as she realized that the prince of monsters was slowly approaching with the two cups wobbling on their saucers. “Hello!” Lailani perked up again as she crawled towards the front of the cage and wrapped her hands around the bars, a slight shiver shook down her spine as she fidgeted in place. The young man had a somber look on his face as he came up the cage and sat down. There was a heavy sigh as he slid the tea-cup through the gap in the bars as he stared at the floor. “Uhm….” Lailani flinched at his silence before she took the cup and tilted her head slightly. “Are you okay?” She gently pressed her forehead against the cold bars and tried to make eye contact with the young prince.

“Yes, I’m just disappointed that I don’t get to join my father in this fight. He’s always so stubborn and ill-tempered, yet everyone still seems to love him and understand he’s a great leader. How does he do it? If I were to be that aggressive they would all hate me.” Asgore sighed again as he stared at the rocks on the floor for a long moment before taking a sip of his tea. Another drop of water came between his thoughts. “I just don’t feel like I can live up to his standard, to be the king of monsters that everyone loves and respects.” His gaze slowly shifted up to the girl, it was clear he felt a little awkward about her concerned look by the fact that he instantly ripped his eyes away.

“I mean, that’s kind of silly when you think about it.” The human girl frowned before sipping the tea and shivering slightly as it sent a rejuvenating tingle down her spine. “Why would you try to be your dad when you’re you? I think the reason they think that way is because they’ve seen how your dad leads and they know that you won’t be the same kind of leader. It’s like, uhm….” She tapped her lip as she tried to think. “Like an alpha wolf and, uh, the head of a lion pride!” She grinned as she bounced in place slightly.

“I don’t know if there’s much of a difference between those things.” The young prince grunted as he sipped on the tea and looked up towards the ceiling of the cave; another annoying water droplet fell and splashed on his nose. His face contorted in annoyance for a brief moment before he brushed it off. “They’re both fierce leaders who lead groups of animals with asserted strength.” He blinked at the human for a moment before turning his head to look at the monsters and their preparations. The girl could tell that he longed to be out there and she couldn’t help but feel that, in some way, it was her fault.

“W-Well, uhm, I guess that was just a bad example.” Lailani leaned back from the bars and against the cold stone wall behind her as she tried to think of something to fill the void of silence that had crept back into their conversation. I guess I could warn him about Desmond and Percy, although I guess they already know about those two. I can’t remember if they said anything about where Hardwin and Kairim were assigned. I think there was another camp the monsters had and that’s where they’re at. Things are going to be tough if the monsters insist on fighting in multiple areas. I guess they just wouldn’t stand a chance if all of the human forces were united and fought full force. The two teenagers quietly looked at the ground, the only sound that pierced the veil of silence was the occasional sound of one of them sipping on the sweet flavored tea. She could feel the disappointment radiating off of the boy and she yearned to somehow take it away but she still couldn’t think of anything. The girl looked past him towards the workers who appeared to be taking a break from the construction of the battering ram and its more fine pieces of wood that had to be carved into shape. They seemed to be joking around like any normal construction workers would do if they were building a cottage or a carriage.

“So, uhm, they’re going to be done with that soon. Do you wanna talk to your skeleton friend? He doesn’t seem to be too happy but I could pull him over here for a chat.” Asgore shrugged as he finished off his tea.

“Oh, Impact? Yeah, uhm, I guess it’d be nice to talk to him. Do you know much about him? He seems a bit more okay with humans than the rest of you guys.” She smiled slightly as she fidgeted.

“Well, he was friends with a human back in the day so it makes sense that he would be a bit more sensitive than most of us. Despite the apparent peace and harmony, there was very little cultural exchange between the races. His friend was assumed to be a traitor and was locked up in some human type of prison.” He paused to look the girl in the eye. “You’re not the first human to do this, you know that right? There are several humans that don’t think this is right, most of them have suffered some sort of punishment simply for questioning the morality of your self righteous system. You do know this, right?” He stared for a long moment, his firm gaze sending a shiver down the girl’s spine.

“Y-Yes, I know I’m not the only one. I’ve only ever heard of people talking about it though, no one who actually fought back or anything. I’m the only one with enough resolve to stick by my beliefs I guess.” The girl shrugged as she drank the rest of her tea and looked towards the ground as if it held some revolutionary answer that would bring an end to both her confusion and her boredom from being locked up. Another annoying drop of water came down and splashed on the young prince as silence came over them, another drip came only to be evaporated by a small orb of fire that appeared over the prince’s head. “So you can do things with fire? That’s pretty cool.” She smiled awkwardly as she tried in vain to keep the conversation going. The young monster was often soft spoken but the silence was still unnerving.

“Yeah, I guess.” He spoke up after a long moment. “I don’t get to use it very much, I like using my trident because it’s more reliable. The fire can be dodged pretty easily if my enemy sees it coming, a trident covers a larger area with ease and it does more damage.” Asgore let out a sigh of relief, it was clearly a more comfortable subject for him in comparison to their previous attempts at discussion.

“Wanna try to spar? You know, when everyone is out on the raid we could practice in here!” Lailani bounced in place before standing up. “I want to help you guys out in some way.” She slowly wrapped a hand around one of the cell bars and took a deep breath, she didn’t want to bend it enough for people to notice but just enough to showcase her abilities to the young prince of monsters; the bars bent outward slightly and made a sharp creaking noise that made both the human and her new friend jump in surprise. “O-Oh, oh no, I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to scare you like that! I-I hope no one noticed, holy hell that would be awful if someone figured it out they would never trust me and uhm….” Her speech slowed to a stop as she noticed that the boy’s eyes were wide with both shock and wonder.

“So you could have escaped anytime you wanted to but you didn’t?” Asgore stood up and inspected the bent piece of metal. “That was forged from one of our smiths through magic, you can manipulate soul metal too?” He bit his lip and tilted his head slightly. “One moment, I’ll get you out of there and I’ll see what you can do.” The girl nodded in response and watched the young prince rush off towards the skeletons.

“O-Okay, just don’t get anyone too unsettled by it!” The human girl cursed herself for the volume at which she spoke; several monsters turned their heads and gave her more bizarre looks of disgust and confusion. I really need to work on volume control. She awkwardly smiled as she retreated back into her cell and sat down against the wall. A large shard stuck out of the wall, it was positioned almost right next to her head so she was naturally drawn to look at it. The girl brushed her hand over it and felt that it wasn’t the same as the rest of the stone she was surrounded by, on a hunch she closed her eyes and reached out to the object with her soul; the object wiggled slightly, confirming her suspicions. Her eyes slowly opened and she smiled. I haven’t seen raw iron like this before, it’s really weird, so dusty and…. She struggled to find the right word to describe it but nothing came to mind as she stared at it. Basic? No, that’s not the right word. She tilted her head slightly away from the wall and huffed. The young metal mage closed her eyes again and focused her essence into the iron, she tried to pull it out but the shard was too deeply lodged inside the wall and refused to budge. She swallowed the lump in her throat at the thought of having to change the metal’s shape into something more complex in order to slip it out of there. The girl chewed on her lip as she stared at it in thought. Can I do this? I failed with trying to make that knife earlier. She smiled in an attempt to fool herself into thinking that there was no way she could mess it up, that she was capable of doing anything that she set her mind to. So what do I do? Impact told me to picture it but that didn’t work out so well. I’ll just like, uhm…. She closed her eyes again and saw the white letters from earlier that listed out what she had in her inventory and what capabilities she had from a physical aspect, she thought her way through the menus but none of them said anything about the limits to what she could do with her magical gifts. Great, of course it can’t be simple. She growled to herself as she opened her eyes and gritted her teeth as she prepared to give it her best shot. I can do this, I can do this, this is the next step in my growth anyways. Desmond would have pushed me to do this and to expand my abilities. I can’t just stay this way forever. She closed her eyes reached out with her soul and imaged the hunk of metal to compress and weave through the cracks in the rocks, all of the small chips missing, all the awkward grooves that iron has to move around. Her jaw started twitching and her mouth jittered open as she exhaled, she could hear the metal moving but it was clearly stiff and stuck in place despite how hard she was trying to dislodge it. Picture it, the metal flattening and sliding out cleanly. Yes, that should do it. She cringed as she heard a horrid sound that resonated with the grating of metal that rang out throughout the entire portion of the cave.that she was willingly trapped inside of. Her eyes opened as she whipped her head around to check to see if anyone had stopped to look at what she was doing, to her surprise there wasn’t much attention brought to the loud screeching sound aside from a few people covering their ears and growling something incomprehensible under their breaths. Wow, out of all the things I’ve done that’s what goes mostly unnoticed? She chuckled to herself before looking back at the hunk of metal. It was indeed reshaped but the shape was crude and far from the clean she was hoping to make. Her smile slowly turned into a frown at the sight of her failure, she let out a weary sigh as she let her head rest against the wall next to the protruding ore. Great, and I didn’t even do it right. How am I going to help them if I can’t even form a sheet of iron? I can’t just keep smashing peoples heads in with spheres of metal, that leaves sparing them as not an option. She drew her head back and let it fall against the rock again, the pain was barely noticed as she stared at the floor and started thinking to herself of what could be next.

“Well, I see you’ve made some progress on something.” The girl nearly jumped out of her skin at the sudden sound of a familiar voice. “You’re getting better but you could still use some work.” As she turned around she realized that it was Impact, his firm over the top voice couldn’t be matched by any other skeleton. It was quite strange to see the disembodied head actually possessed a full skeleton that seemed reasonably proportioned to the size of his head rather than the laughable fantasies she had imagined. She tilted her head slightly as she noticed a ring on his lowest left rib that had a key dangling from it, there was no doubt in her mind that it was to the cell she currently resided in.

“Y-Yeah, but I really thought I had it that time.” Lailani sighed as she pushed her cheeks up with her palms as if she were a pouting child that had just been scolded. “Everything felt like it was going so well until that screeching sound started.” The girl huffed once more as she let her body go limp as she fell against the bars that locked her in.

“So you broke focus, you got impatient and started questioning your own resolve.” Impact stared at her, his height allowed him to look down on her with relative ease. “Monster souls do not possess determination, we cannot surpass our own limits, that is a trait unique to humans and that is something you can do.” His voice was stern, almost like a disappointed father looking down on his child. “Try it again, don’t get distracted!” He barked loudly which caused the girl to jolt up straight as an arrow.

“B-But I don’t think I can do it, this kind of thing takes time to learn and Desmond always said that a new skill is hard to pick up if I’m new to using my magic. I-I never taught myself how to do anything more complicated than what I’ve already done.” The girl continued to stare at the ground in dismay as her hair poked through the bars. She fidgeted when she felt a bony hand touch her head but stopped when she realized that it was the skeleton’s weak attempt at encouraging her into a second shot.

“Don’t believe in yourself, believe in the you that you can become.” The bag of bones grunted as he stood up straight and looked over his shoulder at Asgore who was quickly approaching. “If you pull it out before he gets here then I’ll let you out.” He chuckled as he turned back to the human girl, shock on his face as he found her with her eyes closed and her magic swelling from up inside.

“Okay….believe in what I can become.” It was clear that she had tuned out the rest of what he had said, she was clear and focused, driven to do whatever she could do. No, not to whatever I can do, past what I can do. True growth, I need it now! Her magic molded its way into the metal and she felt her soul come in contact with every groove and bump on the piece of ore, she could feel her essence slowly assimilate the iron, to make it the same magical signature as her own body. She could feel it mold to the touch of her essence, it was as if she were shaping clay rather than a solid block of iron. When the girl opened her eyes she squealed with delight as the iron slab dropped to her feet in an odd shape, she had molded it through the uniquely shaped crevice in which it was in yet she had failed to reshape it after it came out. I’ll still have to work on it, but this is a great start! She grinned like an idiot as she spun around and gave her friend a goofy thumbs up. Her smile slowly eroded away into awkwardness as she stared at the unimpressed skeleton who had now been joined by the young prince.

“I suppose it’s a start.” Impact sighed as he slid the key off of his rib and twirled it around with his boney fingers for a moment as he taunted the girl with the idea of escaping as he nonchalantly approached the keyhole.

“Just a start? Her ability is amazing!” Asgore grinned as stared wide eyed at the hunk of metal at the back of the girl’s cell. “If she can manipulate metal that well, including soul metal, she could beat so many knights! Almost all of the soldiers wear armor so she’s basically a trump card!” He punched his left palm with his right fist as he bounced on his heels with excitement overflowing from him. The skeleton inserted the key and with a loud creak he swung the metal door open and gestured for the girl to exit. “Wait, you’re letting her out? You’re actually going to let me spar with her?” He bubbled with energy as he looked up to the skeleton with his eyes wider than the teacup’s saucers.

“Now I never said that, I’ll have to ask your father about that one. The human can roam free as long as she sticks to a few basic guidelines and doesn’t try to escape.” The bonehead sighed again as he slapped his boney hand against his own forehead. “I don’t want either of you using your magic without my supervision.” He growled as he looked between the two overly eager teenagers. “Ah, that feeling when you’re reminded of your younger days back when you were a baby bag of bones.” The skeleton man chortled as he reminisced to himself of his younger days in spite of the fact that they weren’t as distant as he portrayed them to be. “Yes, the good old days.” He sighed wistfully as he stared off into space, his two companions looked at each other with confusion for a brief moment before shrugging it off.

“Well, alright then, I guess this means I get to show you around the camp then?” The young monster prince grinned as wrapped an arm around the human’s shoulder and gently pushed her along. “See ya later Impact! We’ll catch up with you in a bit!” He tried to keep himself from laughing but failed miserably as he broke out into laughter. “We won’t get ourselves into any trouble, I promise.”

“Why do I not believe you?” Impact sighed as he watched the two of them walk away towards the training hall. “His majesty is going to kill me for this.” The skeleton grunted as he slowly followed behind them. “Hey, wait up!” He called out to them as he ran as fast as his legs would carry him. “I’ll be the one giving the tours around here, I do not trust you to show her around without blowing something up!”

“Eheh, I guess that’s fair.” Asgore chuckled awkwardly as backed away from the human girl and rolled his eyes. “I just thought she might want to see how we fought considering she’s going to be fighting alongside us.” The boy shrugged slightly.

“About that…” The skull’s voice trailed off as he looked past the two of them. “You know neither of you are suppose to participate in tomorrow's battle, well Grimgore would actually like to keep things that way.” He turned his head to Lailani. “You will remain as a prisoner of war. You will be given proper accommodations as such and you will not leave the cell.”

#undertale #human souls #The Magicians #Magician's resolve #asgore #determination

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