> Call of the Void > by SuperSaiyanSora-Sama > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter One: This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter One -Story Start- You know, on one hand it should be obvious when you’re getting something too easily, but on the other no one really wants to look at a deal and walk away. I really should have walked away then, would have saved me from so much suffering in this hell. It was convention time, my first convention actually as I had never really had the time or money to go before. This was a special case though and I had gotten a great deal for the entry and lodging in the area. That along with my very  well made costume that I had poured my all into making was seeming sure to make this a grand time to remember. The costume, of course, was fairly simple in design: a large pitch black trench coat that went over a well made collared shirt, dress pants, a nice belt, and some good dress shoes. Those were just the clothes of the man I was going as though. The important part were the glowing circles I had implanted into skin-tight tan gloves, the LEDs capable of changing colors between a set amount I had put in. As you’ve probably guessed, I had gone as Gaster, a humanized version at least, as I didn’t like the idea of a bald cap and white face paint. Of course I had dyed my hair black and white, cut and combed over in a way I thought a human Gaster would. The only thing my costume was missing was at least one Chroma or even a small Gaster Blaster to mount on my shoulder or something, but it was just too much work to figure out a way to do it easily. It didn’t bother me though, as I had the look and at the very least the glow of my own palms for pictures. However, during my walk around the convention, a stall stood out to me. Walking up to the stall, It seemed to be a replica of a shop from my favorite game series, a model of the shop in Twilight Town of Kingdom Hearts. Just the structure alone had caught my interest, but there on a shelf was something even better. Seven model skeleton hands, each with a color glowing in a hole at the palm. To my surprise, there were also two extra hands to the side, with two colors I wouldn’t have expected. In all their glory, nine Chromas lay on that shelf. One of each SOUL Trait from Undertale, one with the Fear trait, and one glowing black that I could only guess was supposed to be HATE. “I see you’ve caught wind of me holding on to your prized possessions, Royal Scientist.” A voice came in from my left, almost startling me. A man had come up next to me, presumably the owner of the stall, dressed oddly enough as a Moogle. Catching on quickly to his acting, I responded in kind. “Yes, I was wondering where they had gone off to. Would you mind returning them?” I asked stoically, trying to keep in line with the personality of the Gaster I favored “Yes of course, however, as you can see yourself I have made a few… upgrades shall we say? I wouldn’t mind being compensated for such an act.” He said with a glint in his eye. I knew I’d have to pay, but this is quite the way to spin it as a character, “Of course, how much do you believe your materials were worth?” He seemed to grin from ear to ear, “Not too much sir, I’d say sixty munny would do.” Sixty dollars? That was a steal if I’d ever seen one. I did appreciate his use of the word for currency in the Square Enix games too. “Of course, I have enough on me right now in fact.” I continued, taking out a wallet I had gotten just for this costume. A pitch black wallet that I’d lined with LEDs inside to glow golden when opened. “Here you are, I’ll be taking my Chromas back now” “Why of course you will, have fun in your new life… Gaster.” The merchant's grin grew as I started to feel dizzy, the Chromas seemed to be shaking too, before they lifted off the shelf and flew into me. At that point everything became too much and I could feel myself falling. That was the start of my hell. The falling I felt never stopped, It continued on and on. There was nothing to break this fall and no light in the darkness I had fallen into. Eventually I had begun to figure out what happened to me. What that merchant had done to me. While in the hell of blackness I noticed my costume had become… more. The gloves were gone, though there was no hole in my palm, and sometimes I would catch them glowing. One time I even accidentally summoned the Fear Chroma, before it immediately disappeared as I was scared by its sudden appearance. All of this led me to believe I had been somehow transformed into what I wore by that merchant. Transformed into… Gaster. This then led me down a rabbit hole of discoveries. If I was Gaster, that meant I had his powers. Once I knew this, I figured that this never ending blackness I was in was the Void. This meant that it was likely I’d forever be trapped here, as there was no way to escape from here that I knew of. Only an outside force of strong magnitude could open a door to this place. There was no way of knowing if this void even connected to a world where such a being existed. Even if said being did exist in any world this is connected to, there was barely a chance of that existence knowing or being able to discover the Void. Eventually though, all of these meaningless thoughts and worries left me, there was no point in obsessing over something I had no control of. My path shifted to figuring out how to use the magic I now had, and training myself to control it. Maybe one day, I’ll be free of this place, but for now? I just did my best to stay sane. In the world that Gaster’s Void had been connected to, things were going quite well. The realm knew relative peace for the races that lived in it. The most prominent of the races were the Ponies, a race of very human-like creatures, incredibly close to regular humans actually, other than the fact that two thirds of the population had wings or a horn. This race was so prominent due to the powerful being born into royalty known as the Alicorns, of which there were three of at the moment. Alicorns were special, having the traits of both Pegesi and Unicorns. The first being the mother to the other two, Faust. Faust was the current Queen of Equestria, the home of the ponies, with no king by her side due to his recent passing. The two daughters, Celestia and Luna are currently 19 and 18 respectively, still incredibly recent in the world for Alicorns due to their insane longevity. But having passed into the maturity of regular adult ponies. However we are not focusing on any of that at the current moment. Our focus is on the younger sister, and her current experimentation with her magic. Luna sat in her room, debating with herself whether she should mess with what she had found right now or get her mother’s opinion and help with it. Of course, Luna being as brash as she is decides to just go for it and launches into the dreamscape as she has many a time before. Finding herself in front of what she had found moments ago. A large gray door stood before her, and she knew it was not like the other doors in her dreamscape, it was definitely not a dream. She did not really know what it was either though, only that she felt something on the other side and instinctively knew that it was trapped. She knew she really shouldn't, she knew she should get her mother to look at it first, but she also just had to know what was on the other side of this door. So, she opened it. It was just as I had been doing ever since I arrived here, testing out my powers in any unique way I could dream up. It was really the only thing I could do in this place. The most recent development was using conjured bones in an elongated form and shaping magic of different shapes onto it, usually that of a scythe head. This idea had spawned from the summoning of Fear scythes and the fact that I couldn’t do it the same way with other traits as Fear could. Fear allowed me to summon a completely solid construct in the shape of a scythe, no elongated bone I mean, acting as it’s primary weapon when in use. Determination could also do this, but that was because Determination could be used to form a construct of practically any shape. This led me to using bone conjurations, which I had found out about pretty early on in my time here, to form a starting point of the pole the scythe head would be on. Then it was just about manipulating magic of one of the traits to form said scythe head on the bone. From my tests all traits other than Kindness could be used offensively and shaped to my will depending on my imaginations and how much control it would take to perform the action. Hell , at one point I said “Fuck it” and figured out how to do trait powered Kamehameha’s. That was fun for a bit. This all led up to what happened. While testing out some Perseverance powered scythes and teaching myself how to fight with them through use of Determination construct dummies, the void… changed. Everything shifted from the pitch black nothingness to a dull gray room, coming with said grayness, was gravity. Pulled down to stand on an grayish-white surface as a floor, I noticed that the room was fairly spacious and now held an equally gray door on one wall. As soon as I had noticed it, it began to creak open. I immediately dismissed all of my magic and turned to face the opposite wall. I had determined this to be, while creepy, the best way to show that I am not a threat. Facing the opposite wall meant I was unready to attack. None of my magic summoned meant no perceivable weapons. Also… I just wanted to pull off a first meeting with “Gaster.” The door was fully open at this point as the creaking had stopped, but no footsteps. ‘They must be standing at the door with no idea what to do next’ I thought. ‘Most likely curious of the door with no real plan in mind.’ That was when the person who entered spoke up. “U-ummm, hello?” I heard the voice of a young lady call out to me. Turning around slowly in place, I got a good look at the new person. She was definitely not human, from the fact she had a horn and what I think were wings on her back, but she looks human apart from it. She looked to not be too tall, but not too short either, about Five feet and nine inches. She had Black and Dark purple intertwined hair, and was wearing predominantly black jeans with blue spots and a dark blue t-shirt. It looked like she had been sleeping to be honest. I decided it was best to just greet her. I let a smile appear on my face, “why hello there young lady, welcome to my Void.” “Why hello there young lady, welcome to my Void.” The man had said, a small smile on his face. He looked to be about six feet in height, wearing a long black trench coat that was buttoned by one button near his waist. I could barely see his black pants underneath along with his gray shirt. He had stylized black and white hair too. The most striking feature though, were his eyes that seemed to be glowing. Blue on the left and red on the right. I was unsure what he meant by void, but I assume he had meant the room we were in. Taking a quick glance around found the room to be, albeit quite large, a completely barren and gray room. “Yes, yes, there is not much here. I’ve been trapped here for who knows how long. Speaking of which, why are you here? And how for that matter?” Trapped? “Oh, um, well. I am currently in the dreamscape, a place of dreams with doors leading to all of my subjects who are currently resting. Did you say you were trapped?” I asked tentatively, no need to assume things quite yet. “Oh my yes, I was trapped here by a man a very long time ago for some unknown reason. He had sold me some goods before telling me to “have fun with my new life” and then I found myself here. I knew of this place though and knew there was no way out from inside.” He stopped to mull something over, “Though, now that you've found and opened the door, would you mind letting me out?” Oh boy, that was a good question. His story seemed genuine to me, but mother wouldn’t see it that way. I need to leave, and ask her first before doing anything rash. I’m already going to be scolded for letting my curiosity goad me into opening the door without her watching. “If you wouldn’t mind, I need to get my mother first. She would very much not appreciate me agreeing to anything alone.” He seemed to get sad for a moment before perking himself up, “That is fine to me, but would you give me your name first?” “Oh… My name’s Luna, and I’ll be right back as fast as I can with my mother. I’m sure you’d rather not be stuck here alone any longer than necessary.” I said, giving him a big smile and wave before stepping out and closing the door. Staring at the door for a second longer, I contemplated just opening it again and letting him out. I could feel his overwhelming fear of being stuck there even after he was found. ‘I need to get mother quickly,’ I decided. Leaving the dreamscape to go back to the waking world. Waking, I immediately got out of bed and headed for the royal chambers. Mother may be in a meeting with the nobles, but this was important. The way to said chambers was long and had many turns as the castle had the bed chambers fairly far away from any entrances for security reasons. Reaching the chambers I took a breath before entering from the side door. “-old you that we cannot give money from the royal treasury for this expense, It does not pertain to any real threat and is therefore your own responsibility.” I head my mother speak from the throne. “I see… I understand then, I will take my leave.” The noblemen bowed before swiftly exiting with a disgruntled look on his face. “I swear, their ridiculous attempts to swindle me are making me really consider culling the ranks again.” “I can see that mother” I spoke from the pillar next to the throne. She quickly whipped her head to me with wide eyes before calming and giving out a sigh. “Please quit sneaking up on me dear, and shouldn’t you be monitoring dreams? You said you wanted to.” Mother retorted, rubbing her temples. “I did, and would be but…” I looked away somewhat. “But?” “I found a door that didn’t seem to connect to a dream… and then I went ahead and opened it.” I admitted. “Ok, and what did you find that caused you to come to me directly afterwards?” A question, but not one I could say no to. She was looking at me with intense eyes and I knew I was in trouble for not coming before opening it. “There was a man, who in his own words, was trapped in there by someone for no real reason.” She was immediately skeptical if her look was any indication, “I mean it, I talked with him for a short time and he said that a merchant he purchased something from told him to enjoy his new life before he found himself stuck in the room I found him in.” “Ok, and you came to me after doing what?” She was still cautious, but seemed to believe me. “He mentioned that he knew what the room was and that he couldn't free himself from inside, but now that I’d found it, he asked me if I would let him out.” I continued quickly before she could respond, “I didn’t. I told him I needed to speak to my mother about it and left after he asked for my name. He did nothing to try and force his way out or stop me from leaving.” “... I see, alright.” My mother stood and turned to me, “Let us head to my chamber and you can take me in with you to speak with him” Alright, It was time to go meet… him again. I never asked for his name did I? After Luna left I immediately launched into an exploration of memories. Memories pertaining to the one I had just interacted with. It was mind boggling to know that the world my Void was connected to was a humanized version of My Little Pony of all things, but it at least left me in a world I had a passing familiarity to. I didn't know everything about the show, but I at least knew the basic plot up until some kind of alicorn baby was born to the pink alicorn. Running through my memories was harder than ever before because I had not been regularly reliving them at all. At first I would go through my entire life's memories using a form of Soul meditation I picked up in order to keep them fresh and to not fade any more than they had in that first while I’d been stuck here. The problem was I had not done one too recently yet. I had stopped doing it every few weeks as I had stopped keeping track of time after a while, it had gotten too hard to keep a count going in my head even with my seemingly enhanced brain. It was planned for soon, but time was a mess here usually and I just did it whenever I remembered. I’d have to go through them all again sometime soon. Right as I was coming out of my meditation, after going through what memories I had of the show and the fanfiction I read here and there. The door opened again, and I knew Things were not gonna be as easy with whoever Luna’s mother was. Looking to the door, I saw Luna with a new person beside her. The new one was taller, at least five feet eleven inches since she seemed only slightly shorter than myself. She had dark blue hair, and was wearing what could only be described as royal robes, mostly red in color, but with gold and silver accents. She spoke up first, “So you’re the person my daughter found. I have only three questions before we go any further.” I see, “Of course, ask your questions and I shall answer to my best abilities.” I responded, this was going to be tiresome. She nodded before continuing. “First, I shall tell you that my name is Faust, and I am the ruler of the land of Equestria. Do you know what that is?” “Yes, but only through tales, ones believed to be fiction where I am from, and the residents were said to look completely different from you.” Half-truths were going to be my best option here. It’s unknown whether she could tell if I am lying, so I needed to stay on the safe side. “Alright then, Do you have any plans to harm the people of my land, or any others for that matter?” Ah, so she must have some ability to sense lies, and is using that to gauge my threat level. “No, I don’t wish to hurt anyone unless they attack me or mine first.” Truth, I’m not a sociopath, even after my time spent here. I’m not gonna mindlessly kill others for no reason. “Very well, Last question then. You told Luna you knew of this place and your inability to escape it. Why do you know of this place if you were trapped here for no reason?” At this question she narrowed her eyes at me. I guess I can give an explanation to this one, “Point taken, why have knowledge of a place there was no reason to be sent to? The Void here is well known by most of my people. It was a small part of a fictional story that someone wrote and was not explored too much, but others explored the concept more and wrote what they thought this place was like. My knowledge of this Void is based on that.” True enough without going into details they wouldn’t understand. Faust stared me down for a few slow seconds before suddenly smiling, “I’ve seen the truth in your words and know that you are not a threat. I believe it is time we let you out, don’t you agree Luna.” She said as she looked to her side. “I told you he was okay! First though,” Luna exclaimed, before turning to me. “You asked for my name before, but never told me yours.” “True, I guess I should introduce myself.” I summon the seven main Trait Chromas in an arc above me, while standing straight and waving my hands to the side. The act surprised them both, but they don’t seem to take it as a threat after our talk. “I am the man who speaks in hands, but you may call me: Gaster. … Luna seems to stare into my soul for a second, “That was kinda lame.” I gave an exaggerated aghast look while dismissing my Chromas. “How dare you, my introduction was magnificent, just look at my Chromas and how they glow with the Traits they’re imbued with. They were meticulously designed by yours truly, along with my Blasters, scythes, Trait Inductors, the Core-” “Okay! I get it! You love your inventions.” Luna yelled, interrupting me. “Hmph, you just can’t appreciate progression.” Luna gave a pout before turning around and walking out the door. Faust turned to me giving a small laugh before doing the same, waving me to follow. I of course did follow here before stopping at the frame. I stared at my feet, one step away from freedom, and contemplated what was going to happen when I walked out of here. Is it really going to just let me walk out like this? Escape from the hell the Merchant put me in? Taking a step forward, I already knew that answer. That Merchant had told me to enjoy my new life, and the smile I saw on his face didn’t feel malicious. He knew this would happen eventually, and knew I’d be let out. This is what he planned for when he sent me there. Won’t make me forgive him for ripping me from my life there, but I will at least admit he didn’t do it for some sick pleasure. He was just insane. Stepping out into the hall of doors, I look to Faust and Luna once more. “Since you said earlier you were in your dreamscape, how am I getting out of here and to the waking world?” Faust looked at me with a small smirk, Before abruptly disappearing. I then turned to Luna for an explanation. “Well, When I leave this place should stop existing as it is my magic that creates it when in use. So that must mean you’ll just appear with me in the waking world as a tag-along.” She said while putting a finger to her cheek in thought. “Alright then, I’ll see you on the other side then.” I said, giving her a small wave. “Right, seeya soon.” she responded. Then she disappeared too, taking the world with her as my eyes seemed to randomly adjust to a new place. A room, with me lying on a really soft bed. Rays of moonlight piercing through the window to the right, and a wight on my side. “You know, if I hadn't known this would happen when she shut down the dreamscape, this would be a really compromising situation for you.” I heard Faust's voice from the left of the bed. Compromising situation? Then I realized what the weight on my side was, looking down I found Luna curled up on my right side slowly waking up from her stint in the dreamscape. Why I woke up faster than her was anyone's guess. This thought process didn’t last long as once she was somewhat awake, she noticed that she was on someone. Turing to look up at me in a slight daze, before her eyes started to widen. “Uhhh, hi?” I dumbly stated. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-”