The Moon In The Dark: Alt-Endings and Doomed Detours

by WorldWalker128

(Snow Problems) The one monster that no human has ever killed

You got the snowman...somehow, Chara muttered, rolling his eyes.
Are you going to do that every time I pick something up? Woona countered silently.
Yes.
Then I'm going to stop picking stuff up.
Chara was silent for a time. Fine, not every time.
Giggling, Woona went back south to proceed east across the ice.

"So what's in the forest outside the paths?" Woona asked as she trudged to a stop on the other side of the ice and looked up at the tower pines. Chara shrugged.

"Mom never let us go there. She said something about the locals' manners being abominable." Woona scrunched up her face.

"Abo- obama- abomina-"

"Abom-min-nable." Chara slowly enunciated "It means awful. Why?"

"Well, I promised mom that I'd befriend every monster in the underground, so if people live in the woods, I'd need to make friends with them too. Have you ever met them?"

"Uh, no!" Chara replied, frowning. "I just said that mom never let us go there. Besides, what are you going to do if they don't want to be friends with you? What if they'd rather kill you and take your SOUL? Not everyone needs a friend to be happy." Woona shivered, and not just from the cold. Still, she was determined to keep her word, and marched in between the huge powered pines. At first it was slow going, but the deeper in she went the less snow had made it through the thick trunks and branches above which made it shallower on the ground. Now that it wasn't as nearly as deep as she was tall her pace quickened, and she left the well-tread path behind. But with her traveling getting easier it also became darker until the branches high above her made her surroundings as dark as a night where storm clouds cover the moon and stars. But more than that, as the dark deepened and woona was forced to cast a spell of light so she could still see where she was going she also noticed a distinct lack of animal noise. She hadn't expected much since this place seemed to be going through winter and on top of that she was deep under ground, but she hadn't seen any monsters since Sans and Papyrus either. Other than the soft crunching of old snow and brittle tree twigs under hoof it was completely silent.

"I don't like this..." Woona whispered. To speak any louder than a whisper in a place quieter than a library felt wrong.

"You have zero problem letting a demon take up residence in your SOUL, but total silence in a forest bothers you?" Chara scoffed. "It's just a forest! When I was alive I almost never saw animals down here, so I doubt we're going to run into bears or wolves, and even if we did they'd be bear or wolf monsters which would make them so weak compared to use that even you could probably kill them we ease! Especially if you used that beam you shot off into the woods earlier."

"No! I won't kill anyone! I-" A branch snapped and Woona whirled towards it to see-

Nothing out of the ordinary. Just trees and snow. And more trees and a few pine needles littering the ground. She spun again and again searching for possible danger until she felt dizzy and fell to her stomach, eyes whirling in her head. Chara rolled his eyes and looked down at her prone form.

"You do know it was probably just Smiley again, right? We already know he likes jokes and pranking people."

"Smiley? Oh, you mean Sans?" Woona asked as she rose and brushed herself off. "I-" A second snapping branch, this time from in front of her, followed by an odd low growl silenced her, and her head whipped forward to see a big shadow ambling towards her. It stood upright like Sans and Papyrus and Toriel, but it had incorrect proportions to be any of the, even with the growling aside.

"H- he- llo?" Woona asked, voice shaking as she looked up at two glowing red eyes. She took half a step back, and the newcomer took ambled several steps closer into the circle of light projected by the spell to reveal a tall chubby gray-furred creature with bushy black eyebrows, a square-shaped head, glowing red eyes, yellowed fangs and slender almost stick-like arms and legs.

"Wait." Chara said, his expression and voice deadpan. "Is that a-"

"You made a mistake coming here, little human!" the creature bellowed, glaring at Chara's ghostly form. "I devoured your kind in ages past, and now I shall do so again!! The Yeti do not suffer intruders on their territory lightly!" Ignoring Woona, the Yeti stomped forward and lashed out with its equally stick-like claws in an attempt to grab hold of Chara, only to have his limbs go through Chara's torso unharmed. "What trickery is this?!" He bellowed, pausing and stepping back.

"Ch- Chara? What is he?! Why is he attacking you?!" Chara ignored the Yeti's angry examination of him and looked at Woona.

"When monsterkind were locked away after the old war, not all of them were banished at the same time. Some either escaped the battlefields or else never got involved at all and hid deep in forests, swamps, deserts, the sea, or high up in frozen mountains. You ever hear stories of creatures called the Kracken, Loch Ness, the Slender Man, or the Chupacabra?" Woona thought for a few seconds, her eyes looking up and slightly squinted. She shook her head and Chara sighed. "Don't know why I thought you would have. Anyway, those are all types monsters that had managed to avoid being banished down here or getting killed over the centuries. This guy here," he pointed at the Yeti, which was now examining Woona with suspicion written on his face. "I recognize from an old computer game. There was no way to actually win it. All you could do was try to get as high a score as possible while skiing down a snowy mountain. I guess his kind were what inspired it."

"What's a computer?"

"Enough of this!" The Yeti declared, and scooped Woona up from the snow, holding her vertically from beneath her forelegs. Woona squeaked in protest and tried to free herself by squirming to no avail. "Ghost-monsters attach themselves to objects. Since I've never seen him before you came along, this ghost-human probably attached himself to you! I don't normally attack other monsters, but if you've allied yourself with the humans, then you've betrayed your own kind!" The Yeti opened his mouth obscenely wide, and pulled Woona towards it. Screaming, Woona instinctively fired a new beam of energy at the Yeti, shoving it away from her with the force of a train slamming into a building. The Yeti crashed through three tree trunks as Woona fell back to the ground, causing two of them to topple and leaving a gaping hole in the third before being out of sight. Woona shakily picked herself up to Chara's clapping. Grinning and his eyes appearing to be black empty holes, he bent forward and congratulated her.

"Well done, little sister! You saved yourself from becoming lunch, and made your first kill at the same time! You're well on your way to-"

"He's not dead." Chara paused, and looked the way that the Yeti had been thrown. "He's gone for now, but you said my strength would go up if I killed a monster. I feel the same as I did before."

"What."

A fierce roar that sounded like a mix of a gorilla roar and a dog growl echoed through the trees. The only way he could have survived that would be if he had consumed a human's SOUL in the past. He did say that he'd eaten humans before, so it is possible... "We need to go. Now!" Chara didn't sound afraid, and really he wasn't. But if Woona died and her SOUL was consumed he'd probably end up right back where he'd been before if he wasn't consumed along with Woona, and this time he doubted anyone would be naive enough to carry one such as him away from his grave.

"But which way leads back? I got all turned around earlier!"

"Just follow your tracks back the way we ca-"

The Yeti suddenly came rapidly stomping back within eyesight, this time from their right. Woona was off like a shot through the trees, in completely the wrong direction.

Seven minutes of endless fleeing later Woona was tired and out of breath, and it was unknown where the Yeti was. Seeing a large pile of twigs and pine needles nearby Woona quickly burrowed beneath them and at a reminder from Chara pulled her tail under as well. Panting heavily and desperately trying to be as quiet as possible Woona listened for any indication that her attacker was near. One minute passed by with no sounds beyond her slowly steadying breathing. Now two minutes had gone by. Three. Four.

By the fifth minute Woona was back to breathing normally, and was almost about to poke her head out when a loud stomping caused her to freeze in place and hold her breath.

"I know you're here someplace, little traitor!" He called. "Your reckless tracks in the snow led me right to you! This place may be bare enough of snow to hide you for now, but it's plain for any to see that there are not more tracks leading away from here. Come out so I can feast on you and your human ghost!" His steps passed them by, but didn't walk far enough away to mean that he'd left. Woona heard a snorting snuffling sound like he was sniffing the air.

Woona's lungs began to ache, but she ignored it as her hunter stepped closer to the pile. Just when it seemed she could hold it no longer a popping sound followed by a familiar voice brought an intense feeling of relief.

"Heya, Chills. What's got you all worked up?" It's Sans! Woona internally celebrated. She didn't know him too well yet, but he seemed like a nice guy. 'Chills' grunted and turned away from the pile of forest waste that his nose was leading him towards.

"A small blue horse-like monster wandered into my woods in the company of a human ghost. You know the law as well as I do, and you also know what they've done to my people over the centuries since the war."

"So...what then? You were going to kill a monster because they're being haunted? I saw what you did to the trees back there. You don't do that unless you-"

"That was not my fault!" He yelled back at an unfazed Sans. "When I was about to consume the little traitor and her human haunt, she fired a beam of magic that forced me back through them! She's dangerous, Sans! Moreso because of her ghost!"

"So you're calling a little pony monster dangerous for defending herself from your attempts to kill her by eating her alive. I may not be a genius, Chills, but I think there are some holes in your logic." Chills waved a hand in Sans' general direction and grunted again.

"Bah! This isn't something that should concern you, Sans! Leave before i lose patience with you!" Sans shrugged.

"Well, okay then. I was going to invite you to Grillby's for a hot drink, but if you're in one of your moods I guess I-" Woona, not wanting to lose her one chance at survival (without needing to break her promise to Toriel in the process) scrambled out from her hiding place and darted in the direction of Sans's voice. Luck was with Woona, and Chills was currently facing away from them when she did so. Sans, on the other hoof, did see her, and quickly crouched down and opened his jacket. Woona crawled inside his hollow stomach and Sans quickly zipped his jacket back up again. "-can just leave you to your vendetta. Have a 'pine time' out here in the woods!" Sans chuckled

"Ugh, Sans! Your jokes are-" Sans snapped his fingers and vanished, leaving the Yeti behind, and taking Woona to safety.

Author's Note:

In case you haven't already guessed, this is the monster they ran into:

Anyone who grew up in the 90's should recognize this guy.
I tried to find sound effects that I could use for the Yeti's roar, but the one I wanted I had to pay for, and I'm not paying $3 for a single sound effect that I will probably only use for just this one story piece. A shame really, it sounded scary.
Originally, I intended for the Yeti to catch her and eat her like in the Ski Free game, but as I went on I started wanting to see Sans actually work to keep his promise to Toriel. He says that he's supposed to be protecting you in-game, but when does he actually ever do that?

Comments

[KeybladeWieldingBrony]

Geeeeeet Punned On Chills!