Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Berdly. That name, a name that brought bile to susie's throat. Not only had he become even more unbearable since she and kris went into the supply closet to get chalk, and come out as friends, the smug bluebird seemed to revel in the inevitable gossip. Rumours of what had gone down floated around for a while, some nearly as farfetched as the truth. 

Did they have sex?
Did they join the mafia?
Go to Narnia?
Do a cult ritual?
Roleplay as warrior cats?
Or just have to find the chalk... together?

The purple lizard monster finished brushing her many sharp teeth, and spat in the cracked basin. She looked up at her reflection in the half-shattered mirror, smashed in a drunken fit by her father, and gave a halfhearted attempt at taming her unruly hair.

As she attacked the dark tangled locks,(and found a mint wrapped in cellophane, which she promptly ate,) She returned to her thoughts and wondered, what if we got revenge? The thought sounded far away, ideal. But... she wasn't alone anymore. Kris turned out to be less of a wimp than she had reckoned. But, much as Susie wished he wasn't, Berdly was smart. He could see through an attempt to prank him fairly easily. Unless...
They preyed on that. The dragoness let out a chuckle, and formulated a plan.

A sharp series of beeps rang through the air, cutting into Kris's dream. They groaned and smacked the snooze button, burrowing deeper under the covers. Then they remembered it was a school day. They couldn't sleep in. They tried to remember their dream. Something about being trapped in a cave with a bunch of randoms and a hot pink haired waifu.

They blushed at the thought, then smacked themself. Oh yeah. Being in control felt good. Kris felt as if they had seen the woman before, maybe in one of alphys' countless animes.

They went downstairs to find Toriel frying eggs in the kitchen. The motherly goat monster jumped in suprise, nearly knocking the pan to the tiled floor. "Kris! You usually aren't up this early." Kris looked at the clock. It was 7:23. 

Toriel began scooping two fried eggs and a pile of chopped mushrooms onto a painted plate, with the words "to asriel: the best goatbro in the worl. (The 'd' was cut off) carefully written in gold paint, along with a white-green-yellow smudge that was presumably meant to be Kris's adoptive older brother. Kris took the plate, remembering that asriel was going to be back very soon. 
They wondered if he would be shocked at how they'd changed, it had been two years after all.

After kris had finished eating, they met susie a block away from their house and walked to school together. (If toriel saw Susie loitering outside, she'd probably call the police.)  

As they walked, Kris noticed that Susie had a faint, conspiratorial grin on her pointed snout.
 "I know you're up to something, so just spill it," Susie turned. Oddly enough, she gave an actual answer instead of playfully slapping Kris's arm(which hurt more than they'd like to admit,) and saying "none of your business, nerd," 
"Revenge"
"Revenge on... who?"
The tall monster's grin grew wider, splitting her face in half, shiny yellow teeth shining in the golden morning light. Before the adventure in the dark world, Kris would have found it terrifying. 

"Revenge on Berdly"

Kris burst out laughing, a hoarse, unpleasant sound. "Really? Berdly? Revenge on him?"

"Yeah. And you're gonna help me, nerd,"

Chapter Text

The class was filled with the bubble of chatter as students walked in and sat at their desks, probably talking about partying, drama and crushes. Berdly, of course, was above these things.

Being the smartest, most dedicated and punctual person in the class, not to brag, he had arrived early that day, before anyone else. He looked down his beak at his classmates. A loud bang alerted him to the presence of that delinquent Susie and that creep Kris. 

They furtively scurried to their desks. Berdly narrowed his eyes behind their thick glass lenses. They were beneath him, yes, but he didn't think they were smart enough to know that.

He was itching to know what had gotten into their presumably empty heads, but he didn't want to sink down to their level.
But if he did... a little voice deep down inside of him chirped, then maybe he could understand them better. He brushed the voice off. 

The bell rang, signaling class to start. But the wooden desk at the front of the room was empty, save for a laptop, box of pocky and other 'essential' items. Berdly could not put into words how much he hated anime. The huge eyes, the hideous clothes, the insidious clichés. 

A yellow whirlwind swept through the door and practically leapt onto the desk. Their teacher was here. The intellectually enlightened bluebird shuddered. The smell of their teacher's mew mew kissy cutie generation 2 perfume made him gag.

"H-hey class! S-s-sorry I'm late!" Miss Alphys said, clearly flustered. Berdly repressed an eyeroll. He didn't even know why she was a teacher if she couldn't even get to class on ttime.He tried to remember the last time he was late. Nope, he hadn't been late since 4th grade. And he wasn't going to break that streak now.

Alphys's insufferable stutter broke into his thoughts. "A-a reminder, class," Since when did Berdly need reminders? "Your p-projects are due at t-the end of this week." 
Ah. That wasn't hard. The crainially blessed avian was halfway through, and Noelle was his partner. She was the second smartest student in the class, and he had informed her of that. The deer girl had looked hurt at that remark. 

Berdly wondered why. Surely she would be honored to be second to him. Speaking of Noelle, she was sick today. Berdly would never succumb to illness! He opened his desk to get out the sheet of paper that was the project.

 Diagrams of monster and human anatomy filled the page. The subject for the project was the difference between the two races. Berdly walked over to the cupboard that housed the devices. It reminded him of a few days ago when Susie and Kris went into the closet in the hall to get chalk. They hadn't returned to class. Apparently, they had spent the night at school.

He shuddered to think of what might have happened between the two. But they seemed to be good friends now. This wasn't good for him. If Susie's anger was less likely to be aimed at Kris, it was more likely to be aimed at Berdly. 

But she seemed to be more merciful. And well, Berdly could always... tell on her. He snickered under his breath. 
"C-class? We're doing a t-test now. Please put your p-projects away," Berdly sighed and neatly folded the paper into his desk.

A sheet of paper fell onto his head. He looked up. Catti was handing out tests, only half paying attention for she was tapping away at her phone with her other paw. What an idiot. She'd wish she'd have paid attention to class when she failed her
(A/N whatever Americans do for their big exams). "Start n-now!" Alphys stammered surprisingly loud, as she enthusiastically flipped open her laptop and plugged in her tacky cat-ear headphones. The class went silent.

~~~

After Berdly had finished his questions, first like he always did, he by chance managed to spot a paper ball land by his feet. He snatched up the note and carefully smoothed it out. It said, in scraggly handwriting:

To Kris,
Meet me in the carpark outside 8/12. At 9:PM.
Bring soda.
From Susie.

He smiled. Clearly, they were planning to pull some sort of prank. And he would catch them in the act! He smirked.

~~~

Susie watched the unsuspecting bluebird pick up the false note, and winked at Kris. They nodded, and turned back to their desk. Berdly would think he was about to catch them doing something terrible outside 8/12. But little did he know, he was just a bird fluttering into a cage.