Ponytale

by Scarlett Haze

Chapter 11 - Uwaa!! So Mild♪

You finish dabbing around your eye and feel confident that the ink is gone. You stand up and go to step forward when you see rippling in the water. There must be fish in the water, nothing to be alarmed about. Even as you hear something move out of the water behind you, you keep your head forward. That long looking tentacle appendage? Trick of the eyes, just move faster. Don't mind that its moving, just run. Run. Run!

The water around you moves more and more and out from the water comes a giant sea monster. You prepare to scream out and sprint away until you hear its voice. "Hey... just noticed you were... here." The sea monster looks unimposing with its bright-eyed expression and its rosy cheeks. "I'm Onionsan! Onionsan, y'hear?" It seems to float there as you stare at it and try to find a topic to talk about. Finding nothing you get back on your way. As you do, Onionsan follows you along the water. "So you're visiting Waterfall, huh? It's great here, huh! You love it, huh?"

You honestly don't know how to answer Onionsan and keep moving. "It's my Big Favorite... Even though the water's getting shallow. I have to sit down all the time, but... it's okay! It still beats moving to the city!" You start feeling bad for the sea monster and begin to question on how it would even get around if the water were to go away. "All my friends managed to get to the aquarium and now it's filled, so even if I wanted to... It's fine! Undyne is gonna fix everything, y'hear?"

You take in a sharp breath and try not to show off your uneasiness to Onionsan about Undyne. "Then, I'm gonna go out and be in the ocean, y'hear!" It's not long until you reach the end and Onionsan slows down. "That's the... end of the room there. I hope to see you around! Have a good time!" Onionsan starts lowering itself into the water and waves its noodley appendage to you. "Have a good time in Waterfalllllllll-!" It continues to cry out, even as it burbles into the water below.

You try not to dwell on the large sea monster behind you and continue forward. With every flex, every request to be clean, and that one time where you may have accidentally started a concert with a singing Shyren, you are stopped by a room with a piano and a new puzzle.

"A haunting song echos down the corridor, won't you play along?" you read off the sign. This makes you try to perk your ears to hear anything that sounds like a melody or some kind of tune. Hearing nothing, you exit the piano room and go further down the hall. You pass a lone statue that is getting rained on. You stop at an umbrella can and wonder if you're missing something. If there was a song, then could there be something that you overlooked?

You go to the umbrella can and look in it for any sign of a music box or something that can hint at what you must do. The rain outside makes you think on the statue again and how the water seemed to only land on the shoulders and head. This makes you wonder if an umbrella is exactly what you need.

Taking an umbrella and opening it, you go back to the statue in the hallway and place it above where the rain is falling. As you do this, you hear the sound of a music box cranking up. Stepping back, you hear the music that you need to play. Going back to the piano room and then going back again and again, you finally play enough correct notes to reveal a hidden room. Going in, you see an orb set on a pedestal. You approach it and hover your hooves to grab it when you feel something rustle in your pack.

Setting down your pack, you look inside to see a little white dog sleeping. Setting down your pack however wakes it up, and it shuffles to the orb. It vibrate intensely! You are left horrified as the dog has absorbed this orb of power and is now flying away. You can't stop it as it phases through the walls, never to be seen again. You feel like you could have really benefited from having that orb.

With a sour taste in your mouth and a fresh umbrella from the umbrella can, you grumble through the falling rain and instead look at the writings on the wall. "It must be said that a pony cannot take a monster's SOUL. When a monster dies... it's SOUL disappears. Even if a pony could take these SOULs, they would need an even greater power to take a living monster's SOUL. Saying this, only one kind of monster is the exception. They are called 'boss monsters' and their SOULs are able to persist for only a few moments after death."

You go to move on and find yourself face-to-face with the monster kid again. It looks soaked and this small section is the only place it could find to stay dry. "Yo, you got an umbrella? Awesome!" It slips underneath the cover and its only now you realize that this monster kid has no arms, hands, or an ability to use magic to levitate objects to hold anything. You move carefully and occasionally step into a wet puddle that has formed along your path. "Undyne is soooo cool!" The kid starts speaking aloud, "She's beaten up every bad guy in her way and hasn't lost in any fight! If a pony were to face her, they'd be too busy wetting the bed and worrying about how badly they're gonna get whipped by her."

You try not to shake in both knowing fear and rage. You just keep moving, not knowing that the monster kid had stopped to look at something as you kept going. You stop and look back at distracted monster kid, going back and putting the umbrella over it again. "One time, we had a school project to take care of a flower. The king, Mr. Dreemur, donated his own flowers and came to the school to teach about responsibility and things."

You can almost relate to this monster, getting images of seeing firefighters or scientists coming in to talk about what they do and how important it is for you and your classmates to learn. "It got me to think about just how COOL and AWESOME it would be for Undyne to come to school! She'd beat up all the teachers and teach us on how to beat everyone!" You motion the monster kid to come with you and the both of you walk on. "Maybe she wouldn't beat the teachers up, she's much too cool to harm someone innocent!"

The light gets lower as you walk, making it hard to see where you're stepping. Going a little further, you stop and look out to the horizon. Underneath the many shining stones in the ceiling, you can see a far away castle. This sight makes you remain still for some time, as if you are wanting to keep this image with you. That is where you are going. Part of you doesn't want to go any further, maybe even turn back. Papyrus and sans could keep you in their home, right? You may just have the couch, but this far is good enough...right?

You stop trying to doubt yourself and move on. You needed to get to that castle and if it meant facing Undyne and your fears, then you had to. The rest of your trip is in silence as both you and the monster kid reach a high ledge. You look at each other and wonder how either one of you are going to go forward from here. "You wanna see Undyne, right?" The monster kid positions itself to let you climb up on it. "Put the umbrella away and climb on my shoulders." You ask the kid how they are going to get up there once you're up there. "Don't worry about me, I always find a way through."

Assured that the kid will continue on, you climb up as gingerly as you can. The rain above you seems to stop and the lights go dim again. There's more writing on the walls and you have to light your horn to read it. "The ponies declared war on monsters for fear of the ability we had to absorb their SOULs. Attacking suddenly, with no mercy, this 'war' ended. The ponies united were too powerful against monsters. No SOUL was taken, monsters too numerous to count were left to dust."

The more you learn on this war, the more you feel like you've missed something. Nowhere have you learned about such an event happening but in tales of heroism and fiction. Even then, those stories never spoke of ponies being so violent as these glyphs are saying about them. You are so lost in thought that you nearly step on a glowing blue circle in front of you. You just barely get stabbed by a magical spear thrusting up from the circle and then fading away. You know Undyne is near and start running again.

Wherever you run, more of those circles and spears appear. It becomes a panic-inducing situation as you find yourself getting lost and cornered while the magic spears start appearing faster than before. You have to keep stopping and weaving around just to not get impaled. It all comes to a dead end and the spears have stopped appearing. You may be trapped, but if you're fast enough, perhaps you can run back. Swiftly turning and going back you can only hope that Undyne hasn't beaten you to the only exit you have. Seeing her darkened outline ahead of you, you skid along the wooden planks and try to think on what to do now.

Undyne says nothing as she only stares at you. The sound of cutting wind gets louder as multiple spears pierce and slice along the wooden bridge between the both of you. The sound of weakened lumber crying out that it is not going to hold up this weight is heard and the now broken bridge falls down along with you. Panic sets in your stomach as you re-experience a long fall like what you had to encounter when you first fell down. Your hooves keep reaching out for anything to grab or slow your decent, but they find only air. This fall makes your consciousness wane and you soon pass out in mid-air with no sight of what is below you or above.

Comments

[ChaosFerret]

With a sour taste in your mouth and a fresh umbrella from the umbrella can, you grumble through the falling rain and instead look at the writings on the wall. "It must be said that a human cannot take a monster's SOUL. When a monster dies... it's SOUL disappears. Even if a human could take these SOULs, they would need an even greater power to take a living monster's SOUL. Saying this, only one kind of monster is the exception. They are called 'boss monsters' and their SOULs are able to persist for only a few moments after death."

Don't you mean 'pony'?

[Scarlett Haze]

6773895
PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN! (I'm way tired... Also, thanks for catching that.)

[ChaosFerret]

6773978 Any time

[Sunny]

So, from a critical perspective : When is this going to Deviate from retelling Undertale? Thusfar it seems to be cleaving extremely close to the plot without introducing anything new. I mean, yes, 'it's a pony', but it feels like more should be done with that.

[Derpyforever]

I have to agree with a couple of people. Although I like you gave some more insight into the player's mind, it really doesn't seem you changed the story that much. It's beautifully written, that's for sure, but it's way too close to the original story line.

[verypeeved]

does... does that picture say fonytale? as in phonytale?