Deep in a cave within a dark forest a large crystalline tree pulses with strong dormant magic, lighting the cave. As the tree lights up once more a different flash goes off as a certain red haired human falls next tree and tree reacts and begins to pulse in time with his own heart. As Nathan begins to come back to the waking world the tree begins to glow brighter, seemingly happy for a new soul of harmony.
Coming back to, Nathan opens his eyes, seeing darkness in front of him, and to see a light coming from behind him. Beginning to rub his head, Nathan looks over himself, seeing his new additions to his outfit and feels the book in his coat, but he is missing his swords and new rainbow heart.
Getting to his feet, Nathan begins to check himself over again and then looks around for his missing items. Looking behind him, he sees the source of the light. He just stares at the large tree, seemingly in awe by its light and energy. Something seems to resonate within him as he looks at the tree and he walks forward, takes his glove off and places his hand on the front of the tree.
In that instant a rainbow aura begins to covers his arm and then go to his chest. After that happens it leaves his chest and a familiar looking heart is left floating in front of him. He puts his hand out and the heart goes and hovers over his hand, the color changing with his heartbeat. He looks at the heart for a second, shocked by this new power he knows before closing his hand, the rainbow of energy returning to his chest.
“SOUL magic?” He questions. After a second he gets an idea and thinks of the weapons he bought and opens his hands. He hears what sounds like shimmering as closes his hands around the handles of two Chaos Sabres. He looks at the two weapons in his hands, seeing them being exactly the same as the game, but real and sharp. He smile and dismisses the weapons into his ‘inventory’.
As he is about to leave, he feels something moving on his head. Confused, he reaches up and feels something. Something....squishy? Pulling his arm back, the feeling leaves and he gets a surprise. Floating next to him looks like hand sized pink blob with a cartoony spiky smile and eyes.
“Kumu?” He asks, the blob nodding with a smile. Even though Kumu was a very dangerous creature in Glitchtale, Nathan felt oddly relaxed around the pink blob. Reaching up, Nathan begins to gently scratch Kumu under where his chin would be, earning a purr and a nuzzle in response. He laughs a little as the blob take position on top of his head.
He looks up at Kumu with a good natured eye role and smile before looking back to the odd tree and smiles before leaving the cave.
Going out the cave he finds himself in some kind of gorge in a forest. Looking around, he does a double take at seeing a large flight of stairs off to the side. Scratching his head he walk forward and up out of the gorge. Looking around from the top of the stairs, he sees forest all around and then the ruins of an old castle behind him, past the gorge.
Something about this seemed very familiar to him, but he couldn’t place it. Looking to the sky, he sees it is still early morning, around eight. As he looks to the sky two questions pop into his head.
“What the hell happened? And why aren’t I freaking out?” Kumu comes down from his ‘perch’ and looks at Nathan with a curious stare. He idley scratch’s his head with his clawed gloves, not really finding a good reason for his calmness until he pulls his hand back and looks to the glove.
They are bright orange with a black heart on the back of both, the gloves reach down to his mid forearm. “Bravery.” He remembers that his soul changes from the seven main colours of the game as well as black and white representing Hatred and Love. The only color and trait he was missing was pink for Fear yet he still has Kumu with him.
He smiles and looks to his new companion. “Hey Kumu? Wanna go exploring?” He asks, the blob smiling and morphing into a small pink flower and attaching to Nathans coat. He looks to the forest and walks in, his eyes bright orange and filled with Bravery.
He walks for a few minutes before pulling out the book he bought and begins to read through it. The book explains the concept of SOUL alongside LV and EXP in terms of the Undertale universe. SOUL like many thing is an acronym. It stands for Source Of Undying Love. The more powerful a persons SOUL, the more they can use magically and each trait for a SOUL directly impacts the wielders personality, strengths, weaknesses, and virtues.
Aside from that, he read that every trait allows for diffrent uses in combat.
A soul of Patience uses things like magical ropes and traps to ensnare and trip up opponents to drag on fights, making their opponents tired and give up.
Integrity uses attacks that have specific rhythm and beats, like attacking in time with a certain beat to a song.
Justice seems to focus on ranged attacks, ranging to long range sniping to rapid fire blasts.
Bravery increases physical traits like strength, speed and stamina allowing for strong close range combat as well as having a natural connection to fire.
Perseverance seems to specialize in creating heavy weaponry manifestations like large battle axes, broadswords and shields, making the user forgo things like speed.
Kindness focuses on defence and healing over offence, making them essentially a white mage. Some Kindness users can apparently make animal manifestations if they have a strong connection with nature. Whatever that means.
Determination. The most powerful in terms of raw energy and strength, it is also the most versatile, making things like weapons out of magic as well as being able to launch ranged attacks. Unlike the other traits, those with enough determination, like Frisk and Chara, can pull enough strength of will to survive even some of the most fatal of wounds. And they can even alter the very fabric of reality itself. IE Reset, Save and Load.
Hatred. A deadly and dangerous trait to earn. If filled with enough Hatred, they can overpower even Determination users, however it acts like a parasite, making the soul itself all the weaker the more Hatred they use. If not stopped quickly, the Hatred can completely consume the soul, leaving behind an empty shell of a wizard, devoid of magic and in most cases, life.
Love.The powers of a Love user is completely unique to each individual. There is no clear connection or similarity from one Love user to the next. What is consistent, is its ability to easily push back those using Hatred or Fear.
Reading through he reachs Fear, but the page is messed up, the words being illegable and the images of the heart being completely absent. Kumu looks at the page too and gains a confused expression at the lack of Fear material. He floats down and looks at the page close, but gets no info.
“Any ideas what happened to all this info Kumu?” Nathan asks, the blob shaking his head and adorning a disappointed look on his face. Nathan just reaches up and pets the little blob with a smile. “Well, we will just have to learn on our own time huh.” Kumu smiles at the reassurance and returns to his flower form.
After reading that, Nathan goes through and begin to read about how to use one trait. Reading, it seemed that Justice is the easiest to control in terms of magic, while Perseverance is the hardest. All of them is different in styles of how to use them, yet Nathan understands it all.
By the time Nathan managed to use one attempt of each trait he sees that he had managed to walk to the other side of the forest and reachs the outside. Looking around he sees that there is some kind large apple orchard. Looking up, it looked like it was around eleven.
“Wow. I guess I was really lost in thought trying my new magic. What do you think this place is Kumu?” he asks, the blob looking around and noticing a figure walking in the orchard. Kumu goes up and pokes at him and nods to the person.
“Nice. Someone to meet.” He pulls up his hood and scarf, covering his face. Kumu turns to his flower form again and taking his place on his shirt. Oddly, Nathan was not very hot with all of his layers. Nathan looks to the orchard and walks in, his eyes green and full of Kindness.
Walking to the orchard, Nathan barely walk for a few minutes before hearing a women call out loudly. “Soups on everypony!” Following what sounds like a stampede, Nathan passes a small hill and sees a large gathering of....something?
They appear to be some sort of mix between horses and humans. They all have human-like bodies with arms ending in hands and legs ending in hooves and pony muzzles. Almost all of them are wearing farmer style outfits, jeans, plaid shirts, overalls. Although the duo do notice one of them, a lavender one, is wearing a white dress shirt and purple vest with a black skirt and looks a little uncomfortable. She also has a horn on her head.
“What the? Are they some kind of monsters?” Nathan asks aloud, Kumu looking equally confused by the creatures. As the duo continue to look over the gathered beings, one of them, a large red one with a red plaid shirt and dirty jeans, notices them and tenses up. The others notice him and follows his gaze, all of them soon staring at Nathan and Kumu.
Nathan notices this and chooses to be careful. He walks down from the hill slowly, hand in his pockets, eyes locked on the big red one. They get within about half a dozen feet before another one, a orange female with blond hair and green eyes walks up with caution. She is wearing a tied green and white plaid shirt and short jean shorts with a lasso attached and a brown Stetson on her head.
“That’s close enough there partner. Who are you and what are ya’ll doin here?” She asks with her arms crossed and narrowed eyes.
“Sorry, we didn’t mean to intrude on anything. We were just-” Nathan gets interrupted by the red one. “We?” He asks in a deep baritone voice. In response Kumu flies up and hovers next to Nathans head with a smile. The gathered creatures look to Kumu in confusion.
“Yes, we. This is my familiar/friend Kumu. My name is Nathan Blake. Pleasure to meet you.” He says with a slight bow and Kumu nods. The group looks to one another in worry while the purple one is looking at them with curious eyes.
“Why are you wearing so many clothes? Aren’t ya hot?” Another one from within the crowd asks.
“To answer your second question, not really. I am not rally sure why though. But for the first one, I don’t know where I am and I find a large group of creatures I have never seen before. I think it would be best to aire on the side of caution until I am sure I am in no danger.” The gathered group look to one another, more than a few nodding at his logic.
“Well, ya’ll don’t need to worry there sonny. We won’t hurt ya.” An elderly looking green creature says from her seat. Nathan nods to her and removes his hood and lowers his scarf. Most of the creatures go wide eyed at Nathans appearance, his red hair seeming to glow in the sunlight and his green eyes full of kindness and safety.
The elderly one whistles at Nathans reveal. “My word. Ya’ll are quite the strapping young stallion.” She says, most of the females giggling with her. Nathan just smirks with a small laugh.
“Yeah, I get that a lot.” He says good naturedly, a few of the ‘stallions’ chuckling at his response. Nathan then gets an idea and takes out his book and flips through looking for something.
“What are ya lookin for?” A young one with a pink bow in her red mane asks. Nathan smiles as he finds what he was looking for.
“Oh, just a certain spell I wanted to test out. Do you think you can help me out?” He asks, crouching a bit to the girl. She smile and goes to walk up, before being held by the red one.
“Hold on there partner. My little sis won’t be in danger with this spell of yours, will she?” He asks. Nathan just smiles calmly to him.
“Of course not. I am not a monster. All I need her to do is just stand still and nothing will happen to her.” Nathan says. Though the red one is still cautious, he lets his little sister go.
“Ok, just stand riiiight..here.” He says pointing to a spot a few feet away from himself. Once she is in position, Nathan focuses on his magic and thinks in his mind Act<Check and his eyes light up, seeming to have rainbow coloured flames coming out of them. The creatures all tense and get ready to act till, after a few second pass, the flames go out and Nathan smiles.
“Got it. So your name is Applebloom huh?” He says, all the others looking to him in shock.
“H-how do ya know that?” The little filly asks. Unbeknownst to them, Nathan had just used a spell any SOUL user can do: Judgment. By focusing his SOUL outwards and to a certain target, he gets a simple rundown of information about the individual. For Nathan, it showed up like the stats menu in his sight and even came with a short description like in the game.
Applebloom
Species: Earth Pony
LV: 1
EXP: 0
HP: 15
ATK: 3
DEF: 2
The youngest apple sibling in Ponyville. Desires her Cutie Mark very badly.
“You see, the spell I used gives me a short rundown on who someone is, like their name, species, if they are potentially dangerous and also a short description of who they are.” He reaches forward and boops her nose. “For example, I just learned you are the youngest of the Apple family here in Ponyville.” Applebloom just looks to him in awe.
“Wow, that is a really useful spell!” The purple horned one says. Before she can react, Nathan lights up his eyes again and ‘Judges’ her.
Twilight Sparkle
Species: Unicorn
LV: 1
EXP: 0
HP: 45
ATK: 8
DEF: 7
Personal protege of Princess Celestia. Loves books and learning a little too much. Needs to get some friends.
Nathan chuckles a little at the last part.
“You said it Twilight. This spell is very useful.” He says, smirking at Twilights shocked expression.
“Wow. You just got out-magicked by someone. Did not see that coming.” Looking next to Twilight, Nathan sees a small bipedal purple lizard like person with green shorts and a black vest over a purple t-shirt.
Spike the Dragon/ Spike Sparkle
Species: Dragon
LV: 1
EXP: 0
HP: 20
ATK: 3
DEF: 5
Twilight’s number 1 assistant and adopted little brother. Loves himself a gem and tomato sandwich.
“Is she really good with magic Spike?” Nathan asks, enjoying Twilights expression.
“Of course! Aside from the princess, I have never met anyone as good with magic as her.” He says, Nathan and Kumu nodding.
“Yes, I suppose being the Princess personal student, one would have to very gifted in magic.” Nathan says in thought. At this point the purple mare looks like she is going to blow a gasket.
“Well enough of that ya’ll! Let’s eat!” Appleblooms sister says, the ponies all going to the table to eat. She looks and sees Nathan just standing to the side. “What are ya doin Nathan? Aren’t ya hungry?” She asks.
“Is it ok for me to just come in and eat? I mean, I assume you made all this for some kind of reunion or something.” He says quickly checking Appleblooms siblings stats.
AppleJack
Earth Pony
LV: 1
EXP: 0
HP: 50
ATK: 15
DEF: 10
Macintosh Apple/ Big Mac
Earth Pony
LV: 1
EXP: 0
HP: 55
ATK: 14
DEF: 12
“Don’t worry about it sonny! We made more than enough for ya’ll and yer familiar to join in.” The older mare, Granny, says with a smile. Nathan smile back at her and takes a seat next to the recovering Twilight. Nathan and Kumu begin to pick some of the food out, like a casserole, some salad and a few bits of other things before eating, Kumu picking some pieces off of Nathans plate.
All the while Twilight is looking at him from the corner of her eye, seeing as his book becomes visible for a second as he stretches to get some items. While they eat, Nathan uses Judgement on all present, finding all but Twilight and Spike are from the Apple family, if the apple related names are any indication. Kumu is going around the table, passing some of the food that is out of reach for some of the members, acting like a waiter of sorts. He even morphed himself a little bow tie, causing most present to laugh a little.
After a good and filling hour long meal, Nathan and Kumu help in getting the dishes inside for the family.
“Thank ya kindly for the help here Nathan.” Granny says as he come out of the house, without any dishes in hand.
“Think nothing of it Granny. Thank you so much for the food. I never would have thought there were so many recepies for apples before!” Nathan says with a slight bow, Kumu agreeing with a nod. “Well, we better get going. I wanna see if I can get to town and maybe get some info at the local library or something.”
Nathan and Kumu walk down the dirt road for barely a minute before a voice shouts out.
“Hey Nathan and Kumu! Wait up!” Turning around, they see Spike running up with Twilight slowly coming up behind him while holding her stomach and groaning.
“Hey you two. What’s up?”
“Well, we wanted to know if you wanted to tag along with us as we finish up seeing to the preparations for the Summer Sunset Festival.” Spike says, before motioning them to lean closer. “Twilight is going nuts about your spell and wants to ask you about it.” Spike whispers into Nathans ear. He looks to Kumu, who smiles at the two and nods. Nathan smiles himself.
“Alright, might as well. We have nothing better to do.” Nathan says with a smile. Spike smile wide and walks ahead, Nathan and Kumu close behind, Twilight trailing behind them. Though she was sore in the stomach, she was set and wanted to learn this new magic she has yet to see before.
Twilight was filled with Determination.