//------------------------------// // A Bad Time // Story: Of Monsters and Girls // by Fullmetal Pony //------------------------------// “Undyne!” Alphys cried. She pressed her claws up against Undyne’s wound. The flesh around the knife spasmed and wavered. “Hold on!” “Don’t worry,” Apple Bloom hummed. She slid another knife out from under her shirt and rushed at Alphys. “You shouldn’t take too long to deal with!” Papyrus leapt into Apple Bloom’s path. “HOLD IT RIGHT THERE, HUMAN! YOU’RE BEING VERY RU—” Apple Bloom slashed at Papyrus’s skull. A blue glow overtook her arm, and it jolted down. The blow slammed into Papyrus’s chest instead. Papyrus launched off his feet and barreled into the crowd. Apple Bloom stared down at her shaking hand. Her grin widened. “Still not enough for those monsters.” She cricked her neck back and looked over the crowd. She then burst forward towards Undyne again. A few feet from Undyne, she veered left and raised her knife at Sunset. “Let’s give humans another shot.” “No!” Twilight screamed and threw herself at Apple Bloom. Apple Bloom aimed for Twilight’s neck and brought her knife down. A ruby red trident caught the blade in its prongs. Asgore lifted up his weapon and Apple Bloom along with it and threw it with all his might. The trident dug deep into the adjacent wall with Apple Bloom hanging below it. “That should hold her for n—” A rock smashed into Asgore’s head. He tittered backwards and then fell to his knees. His trident dematerialized and Apple Bloom fell back to the ground. She chucked one of the stones in her hand up into the air and then slashed it in two. “Heh, like that would be enough.” Apple Bloom giggled. “It’s never enough.” “Stop!” Frisk emerged out of the crowd and stood before Apple Bloom. Their eyes were brimming with tears and they shook like a leaf. “S-stop it,” Frisk said. “You don’t have to do this.” Apple Bloom’s grin widened and she leveled her knife at Frisk. “You’re right, I don’t have to do this, but I want to do this… and so do THEY.” “I knew it,” Flowey growled. He glared up at Frisk. “Frisk, I’ve got a little power left, so I can get us out of here.” “Oh,” Apple Bloom mused. “Things really have changed for you. Underground, that weakling was as good to you as they were to me.” Flowey wilted a little. “I was always there, Asriel.” Apple Bloom gave her knife a flip. “Even longer than you were. All those weaklings… none of them with enough DETERMINATION to let me have the fun I wanted.” Apple Bloom pointed her knife at Frisk again. “I thought I’d finally found the one with them, but THEY went and changed that.” “The RESET,” Flowey muttered. “Yes. It was going so well until dear old mom stepped in.” Apple Bloom grimaced, jerked her hand up, and cleaved through the air. Anyone nearby not fleeing for the exit jumped back. “Then I was back to being nothing! I just watched while THEY didn’t fight, didn’t earn LOVE, didn’t earn EXP! Nothing! Then you took down the Barrier. I felt myself drifting away. You’d broken your end of the deal. That hurt.” Flowey shrunk back. Apple Bloom bowed her head and huffed. When she raised herself up, the smile was back on face, but her eyes appeared slightly darkened, bringing out more of the red in them. “Just when I thought it was over though, I felt it: DETERMINATION. It was strange, not like the DETERMINATION Underground. No Gold, No EXP, no LOVE. THEY drew me back though. THEY wanted me back. THEY asked where I was. THEY got excited and gave me more power: the power of COMMENTS, VIEWS, and LIKES.” Apple Bloom flipped her knife around so it was pointed at her chest. “Enough power to find someone new to help with the plan. It was actually hard to choose at first. The right DETERMINATION wasn’t easy to come by.” Apple Bloom swiped her knife to the side and pointed it at Sunset and her friends, who were helping support Twilight while Toriel helped keep Asgore on his feet.“Something prevented me from taking one of them, even the one that’s almost as much of a monster as we were, Asriel.” Sunset felt a chill go down her spine. “So I tried other places with strong DETERMINATION, but the right fit didn’t come until I found this one.” Apple Bloom traced a smile across her face with the knife. “Such an energetic one, doing whatever she could to help her poor family out but not being strong enough. Poor thing didn’t even mean to kill the first monster, so I made sure she didn’t feel too bad about that. I taught her that a little DETERMINATION can go a long way, and look where we are.” Apple Bloom held out her hand. “I still need more though. I’ve felt it. More LIKES, more COMMENTS, more VIEWS. If I get more, I can finally finish the plan.” “N-no,” Flowey said. “It should have ended then. Let’s… let’s rest.” “Such a shame,” Apple Bloom hummed, raised her knife, and raced at Frisk and Flowey. “Since when did you think you were in control!?” A spear shot through from the crowd and ripped across Apple Bloom’s side. She crumpled to the ground, clenching the wound. The arm Undyne has used to support herself slipped from underneath her and she fell back onto Alphys. Alphys continued to apply pressure to her wound, but her eyes were locked on the swirling void that had replaced Undyne’s eyepatch. A faint glimmer of magic, like an ethereal pupil, shined deep within it. “Brat,” Undyne huffed. “Like I’d let you hurt anyone else.” “Really!?” Apple Bloom raised her head, revealing that her that her eyes were now pitch black and her irises lit up with a glow that sent a chill down everyone’s spine. She pulled her clenched teeth back into a smile and brought the knife up to her throat. “There’s more than enough DETERMINATION to find someone else, but I have grown to like this one. Oh well, not as good as a RESET, b—” “But it sounds like you wanna have a bad time.” Icy blue magic erupted over Apple Bloom’s knife and flung it across the gym. Sans tightened his left hand into a fist and the magic overtook Apple Bloom as well. It rocketed her up and into the ceiling and then slammed her into the floor. Sans then flipped his palm up, summoning a cage of bones around Apple Bloom. In the blink of an eye, Sans went from over by Apple Bloom to Papyrus’s side. He glanced down and noted the dent in Papyrus’s armor and the sharp crack in his knee. “you’re looking a little broken up there, bro.” “WHAT…” Papyrus coughed. “WHAT A ROYAL GUARD SHOULD BE READY FOR.” “Don’t worry,” said Sans. “We’ll get you and Undyne help. Sorry I didn’t get here fast enough. Guess I really am a lazy bones.” “NOT AT ALL, SANS.” Despite the ache in his side and his leg, Papyrus managed to smile. “THOSE WAS THE BEST HUMAN CATCHING SKILLS I’VE EVER SEEN.” “just take it easy.” Sans lifted Papyrus up with his magic. In a blink, he and Papyrus materialized in front of Sunset and her friends. “was hoping this wouldn’t happen, but i’m going to need you to hit that thing with a concentrated blast of FRIENDSHIP.” Sunset looked over at Sans’ cage. Apple Bloom glared up at her with black liquid leaking down her eyes. A chill went through Sunset and she turned over to Applejack and Dash. Both were still slumped over beside Undyne and Alphys and taking small breaths. Applejack had a few bruises running up her arms and legs while Dash had a bump on the back of her head. Alphys scrambled her claws over a device in her right hand while she kept left on Undyne’s wound. Undyne lied limp under her, the last attack having taken the last bits of her consciousness with it. Alphys took rapid breaths as she raced through her device. “Alphys,” Sunset called out. Alphys jerked her head up and her breathing further quickened. Her eyes started to roll around in their sockets. “I… I…” Sunset grabbed Alphys by the shoulders and looked her straight in the face. “Alphys, breath. I need you with us.” Alphys looked back and forth at Sunset and Undyne. She closed her eyes, gulped, and then stared straight at Sunset. “Okay, it doesn’t look like that thing roughed up your friends too badly. I just have t—” A string of sharp cracks rang through the gym. Apple Bloom crunched some of the shattered bone scattered around her underneath her foot. It and the remains of the cage wavered and burst into blue particles. Sunset moved to get into a fighting stance, but Sans shot a hand out in front of her. “You get your friends up. I can hold it back,” he said with his back toward Sunset. “And don’t think I’m not getting in on this either!” Mettaton lept out of the crowd and stood at Sans’ side. In a flash of light his form shifted from a blocky oversized calculator on a unicycle to a cybernetic humanoid. He brushed the luscious hair that now flowed over half his face and pointed at Apple Bloom. “You’re quite the show stealer, my dear, but in all the wrong ways. Not an ounce of charisma to you!” Sunset took a breath, glanced at her friends, and then looked back to Sans and Mettaton. “We just need a few minutes.” “Y-yeah!” Alphys said, trying as hard as she could to quell the tremor in both her voice and her claws. Sunset picked herself up off the ground and slung Undyne’s arm over her shoulder. She made a beeline for the exit. The air split behind her and then the sharp crack of metal on bone echoed through the gym. Everyone sped up and made it out of the gym. Apple Bloom glared at Sans and Mettaton. It was just the three of them now. Sans stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged. The light in his sockets had shifted so it looked like his eyes were closed. “This was a nice party,” he sighed. “People and monsters were having fun together. New friendships were forming. At parties like this, kids like you…” Sans looked up, his sockets were now black voids. “...should be burning in hell.” A bright flame erupted from Sans’ left eye as he and Mettaton raced toward Apple Bloom.