Chapter Text
You know one of those suspiciously normal days? Where everything seems so usual and so uncannily standard that it can’t help but make you think something weird is *right* around the corner?
Kris was having one of those days, more or less. One of those days that felt confusingly boring versus how hectic their life has been recently, with the Dark Worlds, with Ralsei, with all this “saving the world” stuff keeping them busy.
And yet, here they were now, like things were just. . . normal. The enby sitting in their room, splayed out on their messy bed with its unmade sheets and crumpled pillow. A shitty manga borrowed- “borrowed” from Berdly clutched between their fingers, their socks tapping against the bare wall and their whole body contorted in a weird angle up it vertically. Straight, stiff, and the manga facing right down on them: cutesy, stock generic anime girls on each page with dialogue worthy of that aesthetic. Extremely lackluster and extremely unappealing. They got through all the actually good mangas they stole- “borrowed” from him weeks ago and were rationing out the awful slice-of-life ones to sustain themselves. It did little more than keep them tittering on the edge of boredom, and everything almost felt like it was returning to a small town humdrum. . .
“. . .Should open a Dark World to give us something to do.” They mumble beneath their breath, running their coke-nail down one of the pages to watch it crinkle and fold from the pressure.
It was a good idea as far as bad ideas went. They had their knife on them, and could pick some random building to transform. Maybe the Pizza Parlor? . . .Maybe, but that place freaked them out enough already. Too many people would go to the hospital if they did it there, so that wouldn’t be safe.
. . .Well, might as well brainstorm.
Susie was going to be over soon anyways, so planning this now would save them a lot of hassle tomorrow. That’d liberate them from some of the boredom, if nothing else.
Kris rolls over, casually sitting up and glancing over the room. Random clothes were scattered on random spots all over, trash intermingling between the cracks in the canopy, a clean bubble of tidiness around Asriel’s bed being the only unsoiled spot in the whole room. Eventually their mom would politely goad them into unfucking their pigsty, but for now it's not like Susie would give a shit.
Though, they tried to at least look like they did *something*. Taking a few of the larger piles and casting them to the winds, shoving bits of trash into the overflowing can crammed next to their nightstand.
The place was still positively vile, but. . .
“. . .Perfect.” They give a small thumbs up to no one in particular, their shitty manga swaying in the other hand with crinkling crackles, going to sit back down on their b-
*bwbwbwbzzzrrrRRRRR*
Suddenly, the entire room flickers with bright blue, a miasmic, twirling circle of dark blues and oranges forming directly over Asrie’s bed. A spinning ball of energy that sputters with small bolts of staticy lightning. The glow of the lamp was overpowered by the overwhelming aura, the whole room dyed blinding white, Kris’ hair swaying in the intense, burning energy, their sun-starved eyes practically burned to a crisp as they raised the magazine like a shield.
“That's- new.” They mutter out in an apathetic panic, taking a few tentative steps back, half-expecting the house is about to explode before the loud ringing intensifies into a tea kettle whistle, and it climaxes with one final *boom*.
The blue vortex vanishes with a weak pulse, and a pink mass shoots out of the center of it like an oversized bullet.
That pink ball slams right against the wall with a loud thud, a soft noise like a squeaking balloon filling the air as it makes contact, and it quickly plops down to the bed with a painful thump.
“Ow ow ow ow-” The little ball squeals out, quickly unfolding to reveal the pink was the fabric of a torn dress. . . A pink dress worn by a little girl. A little girl who was now sitting right on Asriel’s clean sheets, rubbing at her messy hair and a big bump forming beneath it from the wall.
Kris looks between themselves, and the manga in their hands, and the girl on the bed. . . She had pale blonde hair, and a big, cartoony red ribbon tied around the back of her head, much younger than the enby was, given they were straddling the teenage label very closely now. Their first thought upon seeing her being a simple:
Fuck, this looks bad out of context.
They’re very, very tentative in approaching the girl, not wanting to make this look any worse than it already does, offering a sweater sleeved palm out to her slowly.
She doesn’t seem to notice them at first, too concerned with wincing and grumbling to care, her eyes squeezed shut closely and her lips pursed tightly. They decide the only thing they can really do is try and be assertive, and reach out to give her lacy, pink sleeve a small pat.
“Are you okay?” It's said as carefully as they can, and yet, it still gets a pretty strong reaction. The small girl’s entire body jolts up, and her eyes shoot open with a crackling flame behind them.
. . .A stubby hand clenched around her head protectively forms into a tiny fist, and Kris instantly backs right back to the distance they had been at. Her blue eyes are thin slits, and she takes a few rapid pecks across the room. The trash, the old clothes, the leering person with disheveled clothes and ratty hair.
The girl adjusts her position on the sheets, eyeing the enby like she was suddenly expecting a movement or an attack, and seeming confused that they were just standing there. She plays with the skirt of her ripped dress, trying her hardest to fix it up and failing hard with how many pieces it was currently in.
“. . .Did I get kidnapped again?” She questions with a soft, rustic accent, like something out of a bad cowboy cartoon from a few decades ago. . . It sounded absolutely atrocious, even in her cute high-pitched childish tone, with this hidden tomboyish coarseness beneath it.
Kris feels a strange tinge in their chest, and they can’t really explain why. . . But they better get explaining real fast, given the little girl was giving them the most suspicious faces possible and looked ready to strike.
“N-No, I don’t. . . wait, again?” They tilt their head just in time for the girl to tilt her own in tandem, both swapping angles and switching sides in lockstep like a mirrored reflection. A red flush forms on both their cheeks in response, and they quickly break that cycle.
She huffs, pressing both fists into her flat hips, raising her chin high and shaking her head, her giant red bow fluttering with every sway.
“It's happened, gee, two times now, so you never know! . . . And um, not to pry. But this wouldn’t happen to be Onett, would it?” Her bright eyes perk up, glancing to the sunny sky outside the solo window in the center of the room, seeing nothing outside but vast trees and a cloudless sunny day. A perfect day as always in this small town with its small town slowness and small town nostalgia. . .
Kris shrugs, trying not to move too fast to earn another jolt from her, like she was a cornered animal in a cardboard box. The only sound in the air was the rustling of trees outside, the ruffling of their manga, and tapping of the girl’s fingers against her dress’ fabric in preparation for an answer.
“. . .What's a Onett?” All of this was uncanny, given both how she appeared, and the fact that Kris has never even *met* another human before. . . Which made how cute they found her even weirder in her head.
. . .She’s really, really cute-
They’re trying to fight against those recurrent thoughts, and they have a brief suspicion that she can hear them with the way she stares like they suddenly grew a second head.
“You grow up in the woods or something? Thought everyone in Eagleland would know Onett. . .” She already had very little confidence in her tone, and that seems to only shrink her further back into a crumpled ball, like the one she was in when she shot out of that cyclone.
Kris’ confusion grows in the same intensity as her concern, and a thousand random ideas burst into their head with that phrase. A mental image of a town full of bird monsters was their first thought, and the one that lingered the most when they made up lore for it on the spot like it being where Berdly was from.
“Uh. . . You the only human in your town too?” Some attempt at finding common ground was the only idea they had, especially given it’d give them at least a little chemistry. Something enough for her to stop looking like she was about to kick them in the shin and bolt.
. . .It's at this point that both are starting to realize something is very, very wrong here. And that creeping suspicion only grows when the girl’s eyes widen at those words, and she looks lost on what to say next.
“. . .Say. . . Do you have a map of where we are?” She drops that completely out of the blue, with a voice that was no louder than an uncertain whisper, fidgeting with the bow on the back of her blonde hair with idle touches like she was looking for inspiration from somewhere.
Kris didn’t know what she was getting at, but it was pretty hard to ignore those pleading eyes, so they were quick to reach for the cracked cell phone buried in their pocket.
Flipping through panels and open tabs, closing a few dozen different mobile games to eventually find their browser buried underneath, a quick search is all they need to get a map of the local area open. Home Town buried right in the center like a useless, tiny tick on the greater county lines.
They hold the phone out to her, letting her take in the unfamiliar roads and town names, and no recognition to be found. Like it was a puzzle she was desperately trying to decipher. . .
“Do you have a bigger map?” She stands up on Asriel’s bed, forming a smooshy little circle around her on the plump mattress, leaning forward and clinging both hands around Kris’ sleeves to support herself.
The enby can’t help but blush at the contact, but tries to ignore that feeling and zoom the map outwards, so she can see the whole state.
When she asks again, they zoom out more, and more, until she’s met with the whole world map, and only then does her face warp from hesitant uncertainty to outright fear.
“W-Wow. . . G-Gee, that's not. . . right. Eagleland should. . . No. Maybe I’m-? No. . . Hmm. . .”
She plops right down to the bed like a star falling from space, leaving Kris with no answers to be found, or at least, none they wouldn’t have to fight for.
“Look. Can you just tell me who you are? And what's going on? I didn’t really want you to appear in my room either. . .” The phone is buried back deep in their slacks, and they raise their voice more than they should out of sheer bewilderment. . . It's Kris though, so it's still little more than a gravely whisper-yell.
The girl seems more relaxed now, learning you *haven’t* been kidnapped tends to help there. . .
Enough for her to worm her way back onto the sheets, resting hands on her lap, trying to block some of the bigger rips in that shredded pink dress.
“Oh, Sorry. I’m Paula, it's very nice to meet you!. . .” Her tone switches on a dime as she grips the sides of her skirt, giving an unsteady, sitting curtsy, lowering her head an inch or two with a light nod. Flashing the taller enby a small, friendly smile, blue eyes gleaming with stars. “And you are?. . .” Her smile grows, and her soft tone grows into polite, happy courtesy.
Kris tries to silence the thumping in their chest, and offers a paled hand out, trying to copy her politeness with a healthy dose of their own. Hoping she didn’t pry too closely into the messy stains on their sweater, their equally messy hair, and the crisp noise of soiled bandages underneath.
“. . .It's Kris. . . .Hi. . .” They hated this part of meeting someone new. The awkward, painful introductions that drove the introverted part of them mad. It felt like pulling nails every time, and this was just as bad as always. Especially as their arm awkwardly lingered in the open air, awaiting Paula reaching forward and accepting it with no hesitation.
Her hand was half the size of theirs, even with how short they were, as bony as a skeleton with a thin veneer of skin stretched over it. The best she can do is poke her nails around their palm in a pinch, and give them a delicate shake.
Their cheeks brighten again, and they work out their most normal smile. . .
. . . Which comes out like a creepy, serial killer smirk, but it's good enough.
Common ground.
. . .
. . .
. . .
“You seem really, really okay with me being from a different dimension . . .” Paula skeptically notes, the enby mounting the edge of the bed and shrugging at the “startling” revelation she’s shared. That one that felt pretty obvious in hindsight, if not throwing a wrench in their understanding of the happenings around them.
Kris runs a short nail through the sticky pages of the manga, tapping it against the sheets and pushing it down to hide the risque bikini image on the front. They’ll thank Berdly for that later.
“. . .I have a friend from another world already . .” They explain, having no time to try and fill her in on the dark world lore, so that was the best they could give in the short-term.
“Friend” was a strong term, but it felt the most accurate for whatever Ralsei was to them. . . Nothing more. Maybe something less, but definitely nothing more.
Paula nods attentively, latching on in interest and leaning in closer to the enby.
“Woah, like an alien?” She gives the window another quick look, like she’s expecting to see a UFO hovering outside or something. . .
They fight back a laugh, a mental image of Ralsei appearing in their head, trying their hardest to look completely, entirely serious. Flashing her a thumbs up, and the most neutral face possible.
“Yeah, he’s an alien. . . From Mars. It's really cold there, so he’s covered in white fur. Has a big robe. For the martian winds.” They explain it so casually with a fruity wave of their hand, they were always the best liar of the group and Paula very much didn’t know that. Enough that she couldn’t help but gasp and grab them by the sweater with her grubby palms.
“I’d love to meet him before I go. . . But I really need to get back home. I have a really important mission, with my friends. So I don’t think I can really stay for much longer. . .” They had been talking for a few minutes before this subject came up, a few minutes of her explaining everything that led her to this point. Or well, “Everything” wasn’t true, she shared fragmented details about the immediate events and nothing more. Not enough for them to really know anything about her world besides: “Teleport”.
Kris sighs, feeling the SOUL buried inside of them pounding in anticipation, never knowing if it could take over at a moment’s notice. Only beating louder in response to hearing her own call of prophecy.
“I know how that feels. . . All that pressure. . .” They mutter it out so weakly, like they’re half-hoping she doesn’t hear it and doesn’t want them to elaborate. But unfortunately, she does.
The girl’s expression doesn’t darken at that, if anything it only looks like she seems more determined. Closing the distance between them even more, until their noses are practically touching, until Kris’ hushed breaths are certainly warm on her rosy, pinkish cheeks.
“It *is* a lot of weight. But it's worth it to save everyone you care about, right?” She’s speaking from experience there, with all the caring and sincerity that came with it. It was so sincere, but it did little to light a fire in Kris’ frozen heart.
. . .But she meant well, so all they could do is let her believe she did good. She was going to be gone soon anyways, so it was a moot point to care about a white lie.
“Yeah. It is. . .” From this close, they can see just how blue her eyes are, like the sky of home town on a summer day. A far cry from their crimson red, hidden behind muddy bangs and dark shadows. . . “. . .Thanks, Paula. . .”
Paula stays that close for longer than they felt comfortable, enough to inspire another tremble in their spine when she grins wider, and a pitched giggle soon follows.
“It's nothing, really! It's easier to deal with when you have others to lean on. . . I hope I can give that for even a little.” Her tone goes extra soft, and she gives them a lighthearted tap on the forehead with her own skull, like a playful punch on the shoulder.
. . .They can’t stiffen the smile that forms. They weren’t that soulless. And she was having more of an effect on them than they’d like to admit. . .
This came out of nowhere, but it's nice having another puppet to talk to. . . Even for a second. . .
Eventually, she frees herself from being face to face with them, and she takes center stage in the middle of their dirty room. Paula stretches herself out, giving a few testing jumping jacks, socking the air with playful fists, breathing in, and out. Slowly, like she was trying to remember something right at the edge of her memory.
“It was really nice talking to you! Anddddd- sorry about thinking you kidnapped me.” She laughs nervously, ruffling her bow slowly, trying to make herself look a little more presentable before she goes back to wherever she came from. . . Which probably had no eagles, sadly.
. . .Her expression suddenly goes deadpan, and she gives them one final lookover with dull eyes.
“But you do look pretty creepy, to be fair.”
Kris glares with a dagger sharp snarl, one that they can’t even argue against given everything. . . It helped that they leaned into it anyways.
“Good.” They smirk, and bare their teeth like an animal revealing its fangs, their red eyes practically glowing through their bangs.
Paula taps her pink shoes together mockingly, sticking the tip of her tongue out playfully, snickering with one last childish prod.
“I need a lot of room for this, so please stand back!” She points across the room with a stern voice, motivating Kris to vacate things and flee back to their bed. Leaning back on the bed, and raising the manga up like a shield to protect against whatever she was about to do.
The smaller girl traces herself in a cycle, slowly at first, but then, quicker. Like she was trying to form some sort of shape: straight, then at a curved angle, like a half-circle, her steps uncertain and unwieldy. Even with how little she was, she looked like a cumbersome ballet dancer trying to learn the moves.
“Ness makes this look so easy- is this right?- just- spin, and twirl, and then-!” She gets faster and faster and faster, practically bringing up a storm in Kris’ room with the speed of her twirling feet, moving like something out of an old saturday morning show. Forming a torrent of dirty clothes and trash around her as the half-circle grows wider, and wider, and wider, until eventually-
*zzzzzrrrrrrrrbwbwbwWBWBWBW-PSCHZZZ*
A surge of blue light, and she’s gone in an instant, like a crackling flash of lightning. Simply here one second, then gone the next. . . Just as quickly as she had appeared, for that matter. . .
Something strange is in that, like a lack of closure. . .
Its an illogical feeling, given they *just* met and she had only given them scraplets of information about her world. . . And yet, a part of them finds something hollow about someone who understood the pulls of prophecy appearing so quickly, then vanishing before they could even truly get a word out on their suffering.
. . .She was a kid, it woulda been wrong to share my own problems with her. . . Even my actual friends don’t know. . .
. . .It felt hard going back to normal after that affair, the enby walking to the spot she had just been, and finding sooty black staining the ground where she was running.
Kris sighs, slapping their forehead in annoyance, trying to wipe one of the black smudges out and finding it irreversibly burnt into the carpet like tire marks.
“Great. . . That's gonna be hard to explain to mo-”’
*bwbwbwbzzzrrrRRRRR*
When they look up next from the floor, they’re met with another glowing blue cyclone, just like the first one, the air ringing loudly once more like the hum of tinnitus. And Kris barely gets a second to process what they were staring at before the portal vomits out another pink bullet that flies right at them at full speed.
The air is crackling still when she smashes into their stomach skull-first like a bat out of hell, enough momentum to knock them straight on their ass, then straight down into the hard floor with a disorienting thud.
Luckily, their skull isn’t what makes contact first, but that's not saying much given colorful blotches are still bouncing through their vision like shooting stars. So disoriented you’d swear there was a ring of spinning hearts spooling around their head as they mumbled in disorientation at the mass buried into their stomach and chest.
Turns out their sweater, as comfortable as it was, didn’t protect against blunt force trauma, and they were very certain a giant bruise was currently forming right on their gut.
Paula doesn’t seem much better, given she was grumbling and had her whole head nuzzled into the soothing fabric, clinging to the sides of their sweater and digging in for dear life.
“Ow- ow- that hurt even more this. . . time?” She realizes halfway through her meek, pain ridden words who she was face to face with again. Straddling Kris’ body on the ground, looking down at them from above with leering blue interlocking right into their crimson red.
I’m t-too touch starved for this, fuck-
The enby’s face warps into a shade three times brighter than their eyes were, working out nothing more than agitated, embarrassed sounds from the back of their vocal chords in a death rattle.
If they could die right on the spot there they would, but no way of vocalizing that was found as the girl kneaded her palms into their sweater in careful thought. . .
“Gee, this is. . . Did I do it wrong again?. . .” No confidence is found as she speaks, fiddling with the stitching of their sweater like a stim toy, the look in her eyes growing properly gloomy for the first time since the two met. . . “What if I can’t?. . .”
. . .She goes silent after that, like she doesn’t know where to go from here. . . And Kris can’t answer her, given they had no ideas either. . .
Neither had any ideas, and-
**BANG**
Before either can even begin to unravel the mess they were in, the door slams open just as fast as Paula slammed into Kris. Susie pops in with a kick of her boot and a clawed hand on the knob, her head raised high and a lit blunt rolled between her teeth.
“SUP, LOSER.” Hearing her gruff, masculine tone blaring out very quickly reminded the enby that she was coming over to hang out, and she chose a wonderfully bad time to barge in. “Since Tori ain’t here, I just said fuck it and let myself in. Hows i-” She lowers her snout from the ceiling, yellowed eyes finally locking right on the sight unfolding in front of her.
That sight being her friend on the ground with a completely unknown small girl currently straddling them from the top, Kris a flushed mess and the mystery girl groaning with lidded eyes. . .
They were also really, *really* regretting not dropping that slice of life manga now at some point, given it was still in their hand and the image on the front was facing towards her.
Which made an already compromising position somehow even more so if that was even possible.
The monster snuffs the blunt out on her sleeve, and very slowly pushes it into the pocket of her jacket. She hasn’t said anything.
“. . .Are they an alien too?” Paula asks the enby beneath her, leaning on them for emotional support and giving the strange reptile creature a friendly wave.
. . .Susie’s eyes narrow, and the tip of her snout curls up in a daze. She glances back and forth between Kris, and Paula, and Kris, and Paula. Then back to Kris. Then back to Paula.
“. . .?” The monster’s triangular, sharp teeth hang open, and her purple hand tightens around the bronze knob. “. . .” She very slowly steps back out into the hallway, pinprick pupils locked on the enby, gingerly creaking the door back close and not breaking eye contact for even a millisecond.
When the door was about halfway closed again they finally worked up the courage to get some frenzied words out before she left entirely.
“W-Wait, this isn’t. What it looks like.” It was as cliche a line as possible, but it somehow stopped Susie from closing the door anymore. She hovers halfway through the crack with her whole snout tilted through, her tongue prodding out in thought and waiting to hear what they had to say.
. . .Kris sighs, and finally drops that manga way too late.
“. . .Okay. So she came out of a portal, and-”
Susie’s eyes narrow even deeper and she instantly begins closing the door again without even another word.
“W-Wait- I don’t-”
*bang*
Its pulled shut again. . . But it only stays shut for a couple brief, agonizing moments before the door is quickly pushed open with none of the mocking carefulness that it was closed with.
“Relax, relax. I’m fucking with you, you’re too good at lying to make up something that stupid.” She’s chuckling to herself in self-indulgent purrs, but still seems kind of shaken by whatever the fuck she just walked in on. Not enough to prevent her from walking back into the room and trotting up to the two humans, though.
Kris is making complaining noises, and Paula practically copies that upset sound when the purple monster picks her up by the white collar of her dress, hitching her up and swaying her side to side like a pendulum.
“So, Portal. You pop out of a Dark World, kid?” She questions nonchalantly, the smaller girl kicking her legs and thumping Susie’s muscular body in the stomach a few times with her scuffed sneakers. Susie didn’t seem to care much, given how much stockier she was. As damaging as hitting a brick wall with a wiffle bat.
The enby titters to their feet, wobbling like a puppet on clumsy strings, clutching one arm to their stomach to try and relieve some of the fresh bruises splattered over their insides.
“She’s not. . .” They lean against the frame of their bed to try and stop themselves from falling over, watching Paula try and unravel themselves from Susie’s hold on her neck.
Susie prods her forked tongue out, giving the small girl a few sniffs that are soon rubbed against the scent buds on the top of her mouth. Trying to find something familiar amongst her strange smell, and foreign aromas.
Then, Paula clearly is tired of being manhandled, and snatches at the large monster’s tongue before it can ravel back into her mouth, giving it one sharp *pull*.
She yowls and drops the human like deadweight, Paula landing casually on her feet without difficulty, while Susie is rubbing at her sore tongue with tense, animalistic growls.
“FUCK- you little prick.” Her expression starts looking like she was close to doing foul murder, but it warps into an amused smirk with gritted teeth. “Hehe, shoulda remembered shorties have bite. Right, Kris?” She flicks Paula on her button nose, and the little girl huffs and crosses her arms in indignation.
Kris rests a hand on Paula’s shoulder to stop her from pouncing on the purple monster, very clearly agreeing there.
“L-Look. Let's just. . . sit down, and talk a bit. . . And try to figure stuff out. Okay?” They’re trying to mitigate things to the best of their ability, and Susie is goaded into a squat on the floor, both heels flat, arms drooping over her knees like a T-Rex’s clawed stumps.
“I just came here to smoke, but I guess this is cool too. Guess I’m involved in whatever is happening here. . . It's Susie, by the way.” Susie mutters halfheartedly, patting the ground right next to her with a beckoning tap of her scaly palms, motivating Kris to kneel at her side and lean on her heavy body like an oversized pillow.
Paula flattens her skirt, holding it down and leaning on her side, giving the strange monster a hostile face even as everything cooled down.
“Maybe I should start from the beginning. . .”
. . .
. . .
. . .