Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The small cave was silent. The only sounds one could hear were the occasional falling droplets of water, and the quiet murmur of the small stream flowing through it. That silence was a daily occurrence, but this day was anything but normal. For whilst the ambience was like any other moment in time, the small, passionately crafted wooden raft slowly being taken along with the flow was not. 

And neither were the four monsters currently watching that boat drift away from them, each one following its path in solemn silence, reminiscing about the human whose belongings they had carefully placed on the little raft just moments prior, in a ceremony meant to serve as a final farewell.

But despite the shared moment of remembrance, each monster thought back on the human differently. For each one had wildly varying experiences with the child that had only been amongst them for one day. And those experiences changed each one of them in a different way.

But what all four monsters did share, was not knowing that they were being watched. Watched by a pair of joyful eyes above a wicked grin. A grin that had come to be as a result of its owner reminiscing its time with the human as well. Which was more time then most monsters would remember spending with the child.

Yet what even this creature did not know was that it, too, was being watched. For a sixth individual was also present, observing both the monsters holding their memorial and the wicked creature that was hiding in some tall grass nearby. None of them knew this individual, but he knew them very well. And whereas the monsters were reminiscing about the past, he was contemplating their future. A future, he surmised, his presence would inadvertently change forever.

— — — — — — — — — — —

Ceroba watched as the raft carrying Clover’s gun and hat finally disappeared from view. The memorial had been small and short, but also very fitting. During the time she had spent with Clover the kid had always been the quiet kind, so the silence that surrounded their little service seemed appropriate.

Right now she felt… mixed emotions. She would always be grateful for having met and getting to spend time with the cowboy loving human. She hadn’t seen Starlo so excited since just after he started his sheriff persona, and the rest of the townsfolk seemed to have also enjoyed that afternoon with Clover a lot.

Yet… Clover had also become a constant reminder about everything she had come to hate about herself. Looking back on that day, she could still hardly believe she had come so incredibly close to letting another child die because of her actions. The ease with which she had accepted using him for her own purposes still scared her to this day. And that confrontation in New Home…

Ceroba mentally shook her head. Best not to dwell on that right now. At least she had found herself able to accept that in the end that day had brought her more good than bad. Even after everything that had transpired she had been forgiven by everyone. Starlo did admit that he’d been shocked at just how deep she had gotten stuck inside her own sorrow, but other than that no one had been angry at her. Most were understanding even, to a degree, and some had offered to hear her out should she ever find herself troubled by her emotions again.

The truth about Chujin’s experiments had been revealed, and although she would’ve liked to have told the rest about it herself one day, not having to keep it a secret anymore had felt far more freeing then she had anticipated. His reputation had taken a slight dent, but Ceroba had to admit that given the nature of his work that was to be expected. Starlo had made her promise that she wouldn’t continue with it any further however, and she’d had no choice but to agree.

She had also stopped drinking entirely. She had already had some drinks that day before Clover showed up and that had probably contributed to her poor decision making. When she had told Starlo she was going to put the booze away the day after he supported her completely, and even Dina had told her she was genuinely glad about it. After a couple of days she had also realised that being sober had more positives to it. She had less trouble with waking up, had gotten in a better shape than she had been in a long time, and with all the G she saved from not drinking she had been able to afford paying Martlet to fix up the old estate a little.

Speaking of the estate, it had taken her a week after that day with Clover, but she had finally found the courage to visit it again. The place still had plenty of bad memories and, quite frankly, she might never live there again. But because Chujins secrets were no longer secret the estate had lost enough of the mountain of emotions connected to it that Ceroba had at least felt comfortable enough to roam its halls again, albeit for only a couple of hours during each visit. Though she was still thankful that the Feisty Five had entered the estate with her that first time, because it had seemed that Clover and Martlet hadn’t covered up the lab entrance after they had discovered its secrets. If she had seen that trapdoor she would have likely never entered the house again. It was one of two places she hadn’t dared visit during her time there, the other being Kanako’s room.

Kanako… Ceroba closed her eyes for a second, and concentrated, like she had done almost every day since Clover had appeared now. And just like every other time, she still felt her little daughter’s presence in the Underground. It was faint… it always was. But it was there, and it wasn’t going away.

Maybe… Maybe today would give her enough closure with Clover that she could restart her search for Kanako again.

A deep sigh from beside her shook Ceroba out of her thoughts. Looking left she saw Martlet staring off into the distance, a dull look in her eyes. No doubt the bluebird was lost in her own thoughts as well. Martlet did seem a little… tense, though. Her breathing was slow but heavy, and Ceroba could clearly see that the bird's feathers were slightly ruffled. Ceroba was about to comment on it when her companion spoke up.

“Guess that’s really it, then.” Martlet was still staring ahead of herself. “He’s… really gone.”

Martlet's voice betrayed a hint of disbelief, and Ceroba couldn’t help but feel sorry for the bird. From what the fox had seen, the bond between Martlet and Clover went deep, maybe even slightly deeper than mere friendship. Ceroba might have recognized a hint of a familiar protective instinct towards Clover in her feathery friend. And the bird had taken his loss the worst of all of them.

“Heh, the deputy, gone?” Despite referring to Clover as his personas sidekick, Ceroba couldn’t hear a single hint of Starlo’s usual ‘accent’. “I don’t think the kid will ever truly be gone. After all, with the impact he left behind, how could anyone forget him?”

Ceroba could see a small smile creep into the edges of Martlets beak, and she caught herself smiling a little too. “You know Star, I think you might be right there.” She put her paw on Martlets shoulder. “Still, I get what you mean too. We will all miss him.”

A small thud told Ceroba that Starlo had placed his hand on Martlet's other shoulder. Looking past the bird she could see that he was looking their way.

“What Ceroba said. We’ll all miss him together. And if you ever need anyone to talk to about him, we will always be here for ya’.”

“Agreed. I-I might not have known any of you for long, but if you want to talk about Clover with someone, I would be happy to.” Dalv chimed in. He clearly sounded a bit nervous, but at the same time Ceroba could clearly hear that he was also determined about this.

“Aww, thanks guys.” Martlet sounded a lot more like her usual cheerful self now. “I’m glad I have such good friends!”

Starlo chuckled a little. “Yea’, we sure are, ain’t we?” Ceroba internally sighed as she could hear Starlo using that annoying accent of his again. “But honestly tho’, I’m glad I got to meet all of ya’ thanks to the kid.”

Dalv spoke up again. “Yes, I quite agree with that. I don’t know if I would have ever left the Ruins if he hadn’t shown up.” There was still a slight hint of nervosity, but it was less apparent now.

Ceroba turned to look at the vampire. “Well, I am glad you did. You have been an amazing monster to get to know.”

Dalv looked slightly taken aback by her compliment, and he averted his eyes from her gaze. “W-why thank you, miss Ceroba.”

Ceroba had to chuckle at that. “Please, just call me Ceroba. No need for formalities amongst friends.”

Dalv looked up again. “A-ah, right. That is something friends don’t have to do. My apologies Ceroba.”

Ceroba calmly shook her head ever so slightly. “No need to apologise for anything, Dalv.”

The vampire turned his head away again. “Oh, of course.” Ceroba could hear Starlo chuckle behind her, but before she could say anything to the sheriff Dalv looked up again. “Actually, if you don’t mind me asking, might I perhaps know what your best moment with Clover was? I didn’t spend a lot of time with him, and I would like to learn more about what he did after he left the Ruins.”

Dalv looked at Ceroba with a tinge of curiosity in his eyes, so much so that it actually startled her somewhat. It took the fox a moment to process what the vampire had asked her. She hadn’t expected the vampire to be capable of being so forward. Although she had to admit that Dalv had been pleasantly surprised when she had delivered him that basket of corn. He had been nervous, that had been very obvious indeed, but his smile never left his face whilst they had been talking. Maybe she had underestimated Dalv’s interest in socialising a little.

“Uhh, Ceroba… are you okay?” Martlet's voice interrupted Ceroba’s train of thought. Probably for the better, considering all three were currently staring at her.

“Oh. I’m fine. Just… reminiscing.”

“Ya’ ain’t thinkin’ ‘bout the rooftop again, are ya’?”

Ceroba silently cursed herself. If she zoned out after being asked about Clover, of course they would think that she was thinking about the rooftop. “No Star, I wasn’t thinking about… that.” She shook her head to clear her mind again, but she could also swear she heard Starlo let out a deep breath. “No, I was thinking about the moments with Clover I actually still look back on fondly.”

“You know, I don’t think I know your favourite moment with Clover either, come to think of it.” Martlet chirped in. “Oohh, was it something that happened in the Steamworks?” The bird somehow sounded even more curious than Dalv now. Ceroba guessed it couldn’t be helped. It was Martlet after all.

“Yes, it was something that happened in the Steamworks. Although like I already told you guys before, that place is a deathtrap, so not everything that happened there was all fun and games.”

“That just makes me even more glad you and the deputy got out of it alive. But now I am curious too. What could possibly be fond to remember about a rusty factory?”

Ceroba knew full well what that something was. And thinking back on it always made her smile. Because its existence was proof that Chujin had really been a genius, though not in the field of work the Wild East now knew him for. But she was going to keep that little fact to herself for just a little longer. So, she made her answer short. “Simple, meeting A.X.I.S.”

All three stared at her in complete shock. Martlet's beak couldn’t be opened further, Starlo almost let his hat drop to the ground, and Dalv just looked at her as if she just told the most unbelievable story ever.

“So lemme get this straight. Of all the things ya’ came across in there, it's the most murderous and dangerous machine that ya’ liked meetin’ the most… Ceroba, are ya’ sure you’re fine?” Starlo sounded genuinely concerned.

“Surely you’re just making a joke right?” Martlet was all but squawking. There was utter disbelief in her voice. “Meeting that robot was your fondest memory with Clover? After everything you told us it tried to do to you two?”

Dalv simply remained silent, the shock not leaving his face for minutes.

Ceroba had to actually try to keep in her laughter. These reactions were more than worth keeping A.X.I.S’ background a secret for now.

“A-anyways.” Martlet let out a weak chuckle, turning her head towards the other two whilst keeping her eyes on Ceroba, much to the amusement of the fox. “My favourite moment with Clover was sailing on Ava! W-well, it wasn’t really sailing, since Ava didn’t have any sails, b-but still!”

Ceroba saw her opportunity. “Didn’t that boat ride end in disaster? I remember you telling me it went past your intended destination and that it ended with a crash near the East Mines.”

Martlet rubbed one of her wings behind her head. “W-well, yeah, it did.” The poor bird was making this too easy.

“So me liking meeting a dangerous robot isn’t okay, but you crashing yourself and Clover is?”

Martlet froze up, wing still behind her head. Starlo on the other hand just started chuckling.

“W-well I didn’t intend on crashing Ava! If I had known that the river would skip Hotland I wouldn’t have tried going there by boat.”

Ceroba tried her best to keep a straight face, and casually answered the bird she had driven into the defensive. “So? If I had known A.X.I.S. would be patrolling the Steamworks, I wouldn’t have tried going through it either.” By now she couldn’t help herself anymore, and allowed a smug smile to creep onto her face. “Seems to me our situations are still the same”

“W-wha!” Martlet just looked at Ceroba as if she had just hit her with a magic attack. Starlo was by now openly laughing, and even Dalv seemed to be snickering a little. “Well, at least I tried to get help for Clover. Even though they didn’t end up needing it.” She had added that last but under her breath, but unfortunately for the bird, Ceroba’s hearing was excellent.

“Hmm, Clover was also perfectly capable of dealing with A.X.I.S. without my help.” The shock on Martlet's face was complete. Ceroba had correctly guessed the bird was too riled up to realise she was arguing with a fox monster.

“W-w-well, I mean… heh, ehh.” Martlet was stammering up a storm looking for a way out. But Ceroba wasn’t going to give her that chance. She leaned in for the final blow, and with as much authority as she could muster, looked her adversary straight in the eyes. “Just admit it, we both liked the moments where Clover was being Clover the most.”

Martlet could hardly stammer out a weak reply. “A-and those moments are?”

“Whenever he handled a situation us adults were supposed to handle.”

Starlo stopped laughing for a second, but then started straight up wheezing, forced to lean onto Dalv for support. Martlet meanwhile was completely flustered, caught unprepared by Ceroba’s joke. Unfortunately for Ceroba, looking straight at that face was too much to bear, and with a snicker the dam overflowed, then broke completely as she too started laughing to her heart's content. This, at last, also caused Martlet to stop staring and start snickering with the rest of the group.

It took a good while before everyone was calm again. Starlo had been laughing so hard he had actually been out of breath by the end of it. Still, when he finally collected himself, he walked over to Ceroba and gave her a hearty pat on the back. “Geez Ceroba, that pun was awful. I haven’t laughed so much in ages!”

“Why thank you Starlo, I am very proud of it.”

Martlet also came up to the fox. “Okay, I have to admit I didn’t see that one coming. You were so busy bashing me for the Ava incident I didn’t expect you to turn it into about all of us.”

“Uhm.. Pardon me, but what did you mean with “letting Clover handle adult situations?” Dalv sounded a little bit frightened, yet there were also clear hints of genuine interest.

Ceroba understood where the vampire was coming from, though. He hadn’t been there on that rooftop when Clover had made his… decision. Hadn’t been there when she had so foolishly sided with Clover getting a choice for once. A choice she had almost instantly regretted.

“Oh… uh, yeah. She’s just referring to something she said when…” Thankfully Martlet had jumped to her aid, although there was clear pain in the bird’s voice as well.

“Ah, sorry, I didn’t mean to pry into… painful memories.” Dalv sounded like he was withdrawing into himself again, so Ceroba mustered up the courage to turn back to him. “No need to be sorry Dalv. You couldn’t have known.”

A firm hand placed itself upon her shoulder. A hand she had already relied on so often for comfort, some might say its feeling was addictive to the fox. She thanked the Angel, like she did almost weekly now, for having been allowed to meet and befriend Starlo. If he hadn’t been in her life, she might’ve… might’ve…

“It’s alright, Roba. It was his own decision. You’re not to blame” Starlo’s calming, accentless voice grazed her ears like music. It wasted no time to start battling the negative thoughts that were attempting to take over her mind once more. But whilst she did cheer on Starlo’s support against her own conscience, she had to agree with it on one point.

“That’s not entirely true, Star. I-I shouldn’t have supported them with that choice. I should’ve… I should’ve been trying to talk him out of it like you and Martlet were.”

“Ceroba, Starlo is right. You are not to blame. It was perfectly understandable of you to give Clover a choice of his own.” Martlet's voice lacked any signs of being judgmental. Just like Starlo she was completely honest in her support for the by now trembling fox. Still, the condition of her mind worsened, memories of that fateful rooftop fight and its aftermath flashing by and drowning out the caring words her friends were telling her. She could absentmindedly feel them grip her shoulders, embrace her in their love, but by now all she saw in front of her was a human child with a pained expression on his face, his brightly glowing yellow SOUL inside a container in her hands, with no way of returning it to its rightful owner. 

She tried to scream. To yell at the human to take his SOUL back, to stay with her, with his friends. But no words would leave her mouth. 

She tried to reach out for the human, to hug him and show him that they were loved, that they mattered, that they deserved to stay. But she couldn’t move a muscle.

She tried to cry, to weep for this child that had apparently been doomed the moment he had entered her world. But no tears would fall.

She tried to show empathy, remorse, love. But she couldn’t feel anything.

She couldn’t feel.

She couldn’t cry.

She couldn’t help.

She couldn’t do anything.

Something impacted her, hard. So hard, in fact, that she and whatever had run into her fell to the ground. Luckily for the other person, Ceroba had fallen first, serving as a rather soft cushion for them thanks to her fur and kimono. Ceroba however found herself suddenly suffering severe pain at the back of her head. Grasping her head with one arm and finding support around her with the other, she slowly opened her eyes. Looking down on her were the familiar sights of Martlet and Starlo. But they weren’t looking just at her. Their eyes flickered between Ceroba and something to Ceroba’s right. Turning her head to see what her friends were looking at, she found herself gazing upon a panting Dalv, looking straight up to the roof of the cave. Her looking over towards the vampire seemed to finally kick the other two into action, both of them rushing towards one of the monsters on the ground. Martlet reached for Dalv, while Starlo tended to Ceroba. When she turned to face him, she found two very scared eyes looking back at her, Starlo using his trademark hat to support the back of her head.

“Roba, are you alright?!” He somehow sounded even more scared then he looked.

Did she feel alright though? The answer was a resounding no. She could basically hear her heartbeat pounding through her head, and by now she also realised she had been suffering from another relapse before she had been tackled to the ground. She tried to sit up, and with Starlo’s help managed to do so without too much extra pain.

“I-I’ll be alright. But thanks for the help, Star.”

“Ceroba, you weren’t alright in the slightest. Me and Feathers couldn’t get through to you at all. If Dalv hadn’t just slammed into you I don’t know how we would have ever gotten you out of that trance.” While he had been busy checking the back of her head for injuries, Starlo now turned to look Ceroba in the eyes. “This is the third time you got stuck inside your own mind this week. I think you need help. Professional help.”

Professional help? Nonsense, this was just happening because that day with Clover was still so fresh in her mind. If she gave it some time, she would certainly-

Wait, what did Starlo say about Dalv?

“Hold up, Dalv slammed me? Dalv? ”

The vampire in question seemed to be in a better shape then Ceroba was, and with Martlet's help he had already gotten back on his feet. He turned around to face Ceroba, although he was looking down towards the ground.

“You were, ehm, shaking quite violently? And, whimpering? I-I was just standing by, but when the others started shaking you and you still didn’t respond I… Well I thought I had to do something. I’m sorry.”

Before Ceroba could respond, Starlo stood up and walked over to Dalv. “Don’t be. We didn’t get through to her but what you did snapped her out of it. So, thank you.”

“O-oh. You’re welcome, in that case?”

Since Dalv was fine, Martlet was now looking after Ceroba. She was digging through her dimensional satchel until she pulled out a bag of trail mix, and gave it to the fox. Ceroba gratefully ate the food, and in an instant the splitting pain in her head was mostly gone. With Martlet supporting her shoulder she finally managed to get up again. Still, the bluebird looked at her with concern in her eyes.

“H-hey Ceroba? You had me pretty worried there.” There was a small pause as she readjusted the way her wing supported the fox. "Please leave the spacing out to me from now on, okay?”

Ceroba couldn’t help but chuckle slightly at her friend's comment. “With pleasure. And I’m sorry you had to witness that. These episodes are not something I’m proud of.”

“Don’t worry about it too much, we all have our bad days. And Clover… well, I guess I can understand why he would cause you some bad days.”

Starlo joined the two of them again, a serious look on his face. Ceroba noticed that his hat had been returned to its rightful place atop his head. “That might be true, but it ain’t right to have moments like what you just had. You’re thinking about what you did to the kid too much. And not in a good way.”

“I…” She let out a deep sigh. “Maybe you’re right, Star. But it’s not just Clover. It’s… everything. It’s Chujin, it’s Kanako and it’s…” Ceroba had to swallow a lump that had suddenly caught in her throat. “It’s my actions. My behaviour.” She turned to face the ground. Admitting this to herself was hard, and she couldn’t handle looking at her friends’ faces at the same time. “Be honest Star, I’ve been a bad friend. A… bad person.”

Before she could do anything else, Ceroba was pulled into a tight hug by her friends. “Nonsense. You were struggling with a lot of grief, and sure, ya’ might’ve made some stupid decisions, you never acted out of malice. The way I see it is that you were just looking for something to give you hope, and Clover happened to be that something.”

“Also, we did just establish that all of us have attacked Clover at least once.” Martlet was still her usual cheerful self, which made her statement sound rather odd. Still, Ceroba appreciated her… attempt at comforting her. “A-and, I think all of us were out to, ehh, actually harm him too when we did attack.” Martlet really wasn’t making her attempt better, although it did make Ceroba smile a little.

“Uhm, I think what Martlet is trying to say is that Clover made all of us make some questionable decisions.”

“Yeah, eheh… What Dalv said.”

“When ya’ put it like it seems all of us weren’t exactly on our best behaviour that day, wouldn’t you agree, Ceroba?”

Hearing her friends’ rather unique way of comforting her finally helped Ceroba calm down to her normal self again. She was glad to have such good company. They always made it hard for her to hate herself.

“Yes, it does seem that way.” Ceroba broke off the hug and straightened her kimono. “Thank you all for the support. I feel a lot better now.”

“Well, I’m glad we could help ya’. And remember, we’re always open to talk about this stuff with ya’. We’re all in this together.”

“I’ll keep that in mind from now on.”

Dalv suddenly cleared his throat and turned to Starlo. “U-uhm, you said that this has happened before, right? I-if its too personal you don’t have to answer or-”

“No, it’s fine. You are part of our group now, so you deserve to know. Star, how many times has it happened by now? Five times?”

“Eh, I don’t count that time it happened right after we delivered Clover’s SOUL to the king, since we were all pretty busted, so I’d say four. But they have been more frequent lately, and this was your worst so far.”

“Okay.” Dalv looked like he was currently overthinking something. “So, it has happened multiple times and more frequently lately?”

“Pretty much.” What was this vampire getting at?

“Might I ask if you have also been… less active? As in, for the period in which these… episodes started happening more?”

Ceroba could only give Dalv a look of pure confusion. But thinking back, she had been quite active in the days immediately after Clover had waltzed through her life. People hardly gave her a break asking about her time with the kid, Chujin’s work and the Steamworks. It had gotten so bad that at times Starlo or Dina had to tell the other townsfolk to give her some space. But after a couple of days most of the others started losing interest in her experiences, and she had been able to spend more time by herself again. Especially so after Starlo went back to performing shows with the Five again and Martlet got busy with her new carpentry job. Now that she really thought about it actually, she’d had her first episode at the end of the first day in which she had settled back into her pre-Clover routine again… minus the drinking.

“I… I guess I was. Why’d you ask?”

“W-well, I am myself also quite familiar with these… panic attacks. I had them a lot in the first months after I fled into the Ruins.”

“You did? Chujin told me that the Snowdin attack had been horrible, but I didn’t realise it might’ve been that bad for the monsters involved.”

Dalv sighed. “I-it was quite bad, yes. For weeks even the smallest noise would startle me, and I never felt comfortable in spaces where I couldn’t put myself against a wall.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Is it… still that bad?”

Dalv shook his head. “No actually. And that is why I wanted to ask you about it, because I think I know what you need right now.”

Ceroba was taken slightly aback by the seriousness in the vampire's voice. “Huh? What I need right now?”

“Yes, what you need right now to help you with your… episodes.”

“Y-you could help me with those?”

“Well, it’s more that I think I know how you can help yourself.”

It seemed Starlo had gotten tired from the constant back and forth, because he stood up straight and basically shouted at Dalv. “Well, how can she help herself then?”

Dalv jolted a little from the sudden outburst, but to his credit he quickly got back into his normal composure, not letting such a thing scare him anymore. “It’s quite simple really. Ceroba needs something that will help her distract herself from her thoughts. Preferably a constant kind of distraction, like a job or a hobby.”

For the next three minutes Ceroba could hear the distinct sound of falling droplets all around them, a sound she had never bothered to focus on before. But there was nothing else to focus on right now, for everyone had gone completely silent. All they did was stand there, looking at the vampire as if he had just told the world's worst joke. Finally, it was Martlet who spoke up again.

“A distraction? Ceroba needs a distraction? I hyped myself up for something spectacular but all she needs is something to distract her?” That was the last thing Ceroba could understand from her friend as the bird's squawking turned completely incoherent. Starlo meanwhile just held his hat over his eyes, also unable to process the simplicity of Dalv’s solution. Said vampire was starting to look nervous again, and Ceroba felt somewhat sorry for him. She didn’t fully understand his solution herself either yet, but she decided to cut him some slack.

“Might I ask what you mean by that? How would a distraction help me prevent these episodes of mine?”

Dalv seemed to need a moment to process that he had just been spoken to, but after a short while he whipped his head around until his eyes landed back on the patiently waiting Ceroba.

“Oh, uhm, well…” He took a deep breath. “I think you need a distraction because that is what worked for me, at least.” Dalv had regained his composure again, and the serious tone of his voice also seemed to snap Martlet and Starlo out of whatever they were doing in their head since the both of them turned back to the vampire and also listened to his explanation. 

“Like I said, in those first few months after I fled to the Ruins I suffered a lot of panic attacks and nightmares. It got… pretty bad, and I would have almost given up if I hadn’t decided one sleepless night to start playing on the organ I had brought with me. Playing it helped me… very much in fact. So I started playing almost daily, and because I did that I started suffering less and less from those attacks. And because of me playing my organ I also opened up to the residents of the part of the Ruins I hid in, since they sometimes came to hear me play. That’s also how I met Penilla, and thanks to her I tried out writing too, which became a second hobby for me. After that I hardly ever had attacks or nightmares anymore.”

Ceroba had to admit that hearing Dalv’s story like that made his solution to her problem sound pretty logical. Even more so since his theory already seemed to apply to her case as well. She had to admit the vampire seemed to be far more wise then his usually uncertain demeanour let on. 

She gave him a small nod. “I think I get it now. Thanks for the advice Dalv.”

The vampire responded by nodding back. “No problem. Helping each other is what friends do after all.”

“Well, you’re being an amazing friend.”

Ceroba couldn’t understate that enough actually. Just the idea she might have something to help her deal with her regular bouts of negativity eased her mind a little. It seemed she had to alter her previous stance a little. Maybe she shouldn’t wait with going back after Kanako until she dealt with the aftermath of meeting Clover… maybe restarting her search would actually be the distraction she needed. Then again… what she’d done to her little girl had been the start of her downwards spiral… 

Dammit, probably not such a good idea after all. She’d be best off not focussing on either child for the time being. After all, if she did find Kanako, how would she care for her daughter if she couldn’t even take care of herself?

Ceroba let out a heavy sigh, then turned back to Dalv. “Hey, could I ask you one more thing?”

“Of course. Is there something more you want to know?”

Ceroba swallowed. Asking this meant admitting she was still completely lost. That she had once again built a facade around herself over the past two weeks to anyone but the monsters present here, when she had promised herself she’d try to be better. Alas, it seemed that she would not be able to break her cycle alone.

“Uhm, do you think you… you might know something I can do to distract myself with?”

Dalv looked slightly puzzled by her question. “Oh? I… Do you not know of any distractions yourself?”

Ceroba shook her head. “No, I-I cannot think of any.” Anticipating a certain sheriff’s response to that answer, she turned towards Starlo. “I know that you’ve offered me to join your posse a couple times, but I really don’t feel like acting right now. I’ve done that enough around Clover to never want to do it again.”

“Uhh, I could try to teach you some carpentry maybe?” Martlet chirped out.

Ceroba gave it some thought. She had helped Martlet at her estate twice now, and it hadn’t been as boring as the fox had initially expected, but then she remembered how the wood chips always got stuck in the fur of her paws, arms and legs, requiring extensive scrubbing to get all of it out. And it had itched… a lot. Thinking back on the itchiness of it all, Ceroba involuntarily shuddered. Nope.

“I don’t think that would be a great idea, but thanks for the offer.” Ceroba tried to sound as kind as possible, but by the look on Martlet's face her feelings about the wood chip issue had shimmered through.

“Hmm.” Dalv sounded like he was in deep contemplation again. It didn’t take long however, for his face suddenly lit up as he looked at Ceroba. “I think… I think you need to start doing what you want to do the most. That would be the best possible way to keep yourself distracted.”

Ceroba let herself lean against the wall of the cave to think over what Dalv had said. What she wanted to do the most? That was… difficult. If she had to be honest with herself, finding Kanako would always be her greatest desire. But focussing on that was more likely to cause her more harm than good. So, what came next?

She had to admit that helping Starlo and his posse had been serious fun from time to time, but she hadn’t lied to her best friend when she said she didn’t want to do more acting.

She had also sometimes thought about helping Dina out at the bar, as a way of making up for all her late nights spent there keeping the poor barkeep up beyond her usual closing time. But if she thought about it, that wasn’t something she’d really enjoy doing.

Continuing Chujin’s work was out of the question too. Not only because of her promise to Starlo, but also because Ceroba herself had started to realise that her late husband might have been steering his research into far too dangerous territory. As hard as it was to admit, Chujin’s work on human SOULs was better off buried forever.

And Martlets offer? Still one giant no go.

What did that leave for her to actually enjoy? Or, better put, what did she even want to do with her life from now on? She knew she had gotten a second chance she didn’t deserve (or was it her third?) and she was not going to let it go to waste. She owed that much to her friends, and most of all to Clover.

Heh, Clover. Ceroba realised she might never understand how or why, but the kid had completely changed her view of, well, almost everything. She was glad she never got to meet the human who had caused the Snowdin incident. Because she would never be able to compare the experiences her husband had had with her own. Clover had proven Chujin wrong on basically every account, and for as much as she still loved him, she had to admit that he had been wrong about humankind. Clover hadn’t hurt so much as a Flier, had been extremely patient with the adult monsters and their antics and never seemed to have held a grudge against anyone that had tried to hurt him. But what Chujin had gotten wrong the most was how humankind would seek nothing but the complete destruction of monsterkind. Clover hadn’t sought to destroy anything, and in the end he had actually given the ultimate sacrifice for a species that had done almost nothing but beat him down.

If only she had been more like him, maybe she wouldn’t have ended up in the gutter.

Maybe she would have still had her dear daughter.

If only she was more like Clover…

Why, that was it!

Ceroba all but jumped up from the wall. This caught the immediate attention of the others. Starlo rushed to her side, the look in his face telling the fox he was likely scared she was experiencing bad memories again. Not wanting to let her friend think something bad happened, she put her arms on his shoulders. “I think I got it! I know what I want to do!”

Starlo was rightfully very confused at the sudden excitement Ceroba was showing. It took him a moment to process the fox lady almost dragging him around with the widest grin he had seen on her face since before Clover had entered their lives. Maybe even since before the incident with Kanako. “Uh, great!” He tried regaining his composure, and carefully freed himself from Ceroba’s arms. “So uh, what did ya’ come up with.”

“Well, I have been thinking over everything we have talked about here aaaand…” Ceroba decided to add a little moment of silence for dramatic purposes. “I have let myself get inspired by Clover. Now, before you all point out that he is the reason I keep getting these episodes, what I mean by that is that he tried to do so much for everyone around him. He was always ready to help one of us if we needed it, go with us anywhere we wanted him to, and… he cared so much for us he was willing to give up his own life so we might one day see the surface. And I’ve decided I want to also help others that way. Clover did Justice to the fate of monsterkind, so I want to do Justice to his legacy.”

Once more the cave fell silent. Ceroba looked between each of her friends, and although they did not speak, their faces told her enough about what they thought of her plan. Starlo looked shocked. Whether that was because he didn’t expect her to give such an answer or if he didn’t expect her to ever try anything like this in the first place Ceroba couldn’t tell. 

What she could however clearly tell was Martlet’s concern. The bluebird’s face spoke volumes, and if Ceroba was honest she had never seen her feathery friend look so concerned for her. Not even when she had helped Starlo confront the fox back on that rooftop. Why Martlet would be this concerned about Ceroba’s idea was beyond the fox, however.

Dalv’s face, on the other hand, showed nothing but support. His smile gave away his apparent joy for Ceroba finding something she could spend her time on. In fact, the more she looked at him the more he looked a little… proud? She only hoped his idea that it would help her drive away the darkness of her mind would prove to be true, but given the wisdom the vampire had shown her today she didn’t doubt that it would.

As for herself, Ceroba felt better now than she had in days. The last time had been when a slightly drunk Moray had attempted to sing karaoke at Dina’s bar. Her mind was also in full support of her idea for once, not a single voice of objection made itself known. That in and of itself told Ceroba that her idea would have a serious chance of actually working. Surely there was nothing that could go wrong right n-

“Would you really be willing to do such a thing?”

Every single one of Ceroba’s senses went into high alert. The voice had come out of nowhere, and it had definitely not been one of her friends. Speaking of her friends, all of them seemed just as spooked as she was, which meant the voice had not been in her head. Therefore it had come from someone, or something, that was with them inside the cave. She instinctively tried to summon her staff, forgetting that it had broken during the fight with Clover. She let out a low growl as she got into a battle stance.

“Are you truly willing to commit to such a Promise in honour of your fallen friend?”

The voice sounded like it came from the far end of the cave, directly opposite the entrance. Unfortunately that part of the cave was shrouded in complete darkness, and none of the group of monsters knew fire magic. Unbeknownst to Ceroba, Dalv was capable of lighting magic, but the poor vampire was too scared to do anything.

“Whoever you are, show yourself!” Her threat came out a little harsher than she had actually intended, since the mysterious presence could have been just a wandering resident of Waterfall, but something about the stern accent of the voice made her doubt that possibility.

“I can assure you, I mean no harm. In fact, I would like to offer you my help in your new… endeavours.”

Ceroba couldn’t tell if the voice was being genuinely trying to be reassuring or if it was just faking it. Still, as long as it stayed in the shadows, her best course of action was to assess whether or not it was a threat by questioning it. So, she spat out her next question.

“Oh yeah, and how exactly would you be able to help me, by reviving Clover?” She had added that last bit to make it known she wasn’t buying any of this. After all, this voice couldn’t know about the kid. Clover had remained relatively under the radar, mostly thanks to Martlet.

“I could revive the friend you mourn so much, yes. But that is not how I wish to help you, any of you in fact. I know what troubles each and every one of you, and I know where those issues might lead you all.”

Ceroba couldn’t believe it. How did the voice know about Clover? Besides her, her friends and Asgore only the townsfolk of the Wild East, the Oasis and the staff at Honeydew Resort knew about him. And the voice sounded like no one she knew. She was also quite simply stunned at how normal he had made reviving the kid sound. And what was that about knowing all of their troubles? This wasn’t right, none of it. Whatever she was currently talking to made itself seem extremely powerful, far beyond the king even. Ceroba needed to either diffuse the situation now or provide her friends an opportunity to flee. So, playing along it was. But not without one piece of critical information.

“How can I trust you to help me if I don’t even have a face or a name? If you truly wish to help us, show yourself.”

The voice seemed to be contemplating, for it did not speak for almost a minute. Ceroba almost cried out to the others to run for it when it spoke again.

“Very well, that request is understandable. Just know that what I appear to be does not represent what I truly am in the slightest.”  The voice had become progressively deeper as it spoke the last three words.

Before she could give any reaction a figure slowly emerged from the darkness in front of her. A tall person (a him, she noticed) casually stepped forwards, yet his movements carried a confidence that told Ceroba if he wanted them dead, he likely could. Not least because his appearance was decidedly… humanlike. 

She remembered his words, so it was clear that this person knew that it looked human, but wasn’t one. His details were rather vague. What little she could clearly decipher were the short, pitch black hair on his head, and the yellowish tint of his skin. Not the kind of vibrant yellow Clover’s SOUL had been, but rather a more sickly yellow, that looked almost like paper that was left to dry out completely. Oddly enough his clothes had the same colour, with completely black wide-trouser pants that seemed to lack any way of holding themselves together, and a simple V-line shirt that was the same yellow as his skin. Over that shirt he wore a coat that looked like it was made of leather, which was again mostly black, but with a couple of yellow stars here and there. His sneakers also shared that sickening tint of yellow. A pair of… where those sunglasses? A pair of sunglasses rested on top of his head and completed his appearance. All in all, he looked to be around the same age as Martlet was and slightly taller than Starlo, just, in human form. Almost human form, because from everything she had read, that colour yellow should be impossible for a human's skin.

“Alright, you’ve given us a face, but what do I call you?”

The human lookalike seemed to again be contemplating something. Why would someone need to contemplate their own name?

“Hmm… You can call me… Al.”

That did not sound suspicious in the slightest. Absolutely not as if he had made that name up on the spot. However, the way he had said that name made it clear that there wouldn’t be any chance of discussing this further. So, Al it was.

“Okay… Al. You’ve done what I asked you, but that doesn’t mean I trust you completely now. Give us one good reason why we should believe you when you make such outlandish statements as reviving our dead friend.”

“I understand your hesitation, but if it is proof of my trustworthiness you desire, I shall do my best to provide a satisfying answer. However, if you would allow me to, I would like to do so from a shorter distance. I do not… prefer having to raise my voice all the time.” 

Al stepped further towards them, his hands raised up high as a sign of meaning no harm. Ceroba tensed up a little and kept her fists and magic ready for any sudden movements. A quick glance over her shoulder told her Starlo was also standing firm, although she could not see either Martlet or Dalv. Al was within five steps of her now, and she had to admit that him being this close was stressing her out. But then Al did something unexpected. He stopped moving forward, and instead made a step backwards, all the while keeping his gaze on Ceroba. It was as if he knew she was starting to feel too uncomfortable.

“My apologies, I did not desire to stress you out.”

So he could read minds. Yeah, of course he could. Why wouldn’t he be able to? Ceroba was really starting to wish she wasn’t here right now.

“I do not read minds, per se. It is a little more complicated than that. But I digress.”

Ceroba had enough of this. “You digress? You Digress?! What do you mean you’re digressing? Do you really think you can just tell me to my face you can read my mind or whatever and not expect me to freak out? What do you think you’re playing at here?!”

Al didn’t look bothered at all by her sudden snap. He simply looked her in the face, no hint of emotion or expressions visible.

“What I am doing is being honest. I know that my powers can be… a bit much. Therefore I preferred to tell you the truth upfront.”

That… was not the answer Ceroba expected. It was also not an answer she had an instant response to. Which meant that Al started speaking again.

“I understand your confusion, but please, I urge you to let me prove myself. That would spare us all a lot of time.”

Ceroba looked to Starlo for advice. The sheriff noticed her silent pleading, and gave her a nod as he whispered to her. “I don’t like this fella’ one bit, but I think we better let him explain himself.”

Taking Starlo's opinion into consideration, Ceroba saw no reason not to object to letting this… Al finally explain himself.

“Thank you kindly. Now, I am well aware that none of you know me, and I truly am sorry that I had to make myself known in the way I did. However, I have resided in this Underground for roughly two months now, and I have watched most of its inhabitants and their lives. Therefore, I do know a lot about all of you. ” Al emphasised his point by looking at every monster in the room. Keeping close track of his head movements Ceroba had a rough estimation of where Dalv and Martlet were currently standing. Dalv was apparently just behind Starlo to her right, likely staying by the sheriff's side for protection against this unknown entity. Martlet however seemed to be way off, as Al had to turn his head a couple of degrees to Ceroba’s left. Was the bluebird trying to sneak around Al?

“I know, for example, everything that transpired between all of you and Clover. Both your experiences as a group… and individually”

Al’s gaze was locked onto Martlets for some reason. Had he figured out what she was trying to do?

“I have also seen that, despite witnessing certain actions, all of you have come to care dearly for the child. Like I already said, it is within my powers to bring him back to life. However that would come at a potentially great cost to this universe. A cost I am not willing to risk under the current circumstances.”

So he was actually serious about being able to revive Clover. It still sounded insane. She knew that that failure Alphys was currently looking into extending the life of monsters beyond their falling down, but to bring someone back to life? That had been deemed an impossibility long ago. So if Al was truly capable of such a feat, that made him more powerful than anyone in the Underground. Potentially even more powerful than any human on the surface either.

“I have… chosen this moment to reveal myself, because I noticed that you have all come to suffer at the loss of your friend. Yet you have also used your experiences with Clover to better yourselves as monsters, which I greatly admire.”

Al spoke almost exclusively in a very neutral tone, but Ceroba could clearly hear a small shift in his voice when he spoke his last statement. Seems he wasn’t lying about his admiration. But why would a being as strong as him really be that impressed by her and her friends?

“However, I also sense that some amongst you are suffering a great deal more than the others. That they still remain with… questions about Clover and the… reasons he went through the Underground as he did.”

Ceroba had to admit, Al seemed to truly know that she was still struggling greatly with everything that transpired. Yet he also appeared to be very considerate of her feelings. It was already clear that Al was able to read minds as easily as she could cast her shields, but he never showed any hint of malicious intent with that downright scary power.

“That is why I have come forward now. I know that all of you are trying to overcome your personal struggles related to the events of two weeks ago. And I offer you all my help with overcoming these struggles. ” Al looked back at Ceroba again. “Like in your case, Miss Ceroba. I know that what you experienced with Clover is clashing with all that you thought to know before you met him. And I can assure you that your desire to follow in his footsteps has my utmost respect. But to take up his cause is no easy task. If you truly wish to become like Clover, to become a paragon of Justice for the Underground, you will have to understand its meaning, and its potential traps. Justice comes in a great variety of forms that each serve their own purpose, and reach for their own goals. Yet sometimes these forms can clash with one another. I have seen many situations in which what one person considered Justice was considered as something more negative by others, like Vengeance.”

Al’s words were heavy, but Ceroba understood their meaning. If she truly wished to follow Clover’s example, she would need to learn… a lot. And it sounded like Al was already wise in that what she would need to study.

She glanced over at Starlo once more, but stayed silent. Her friend was unmoving, standing in a pose that betrayed just how tense he really was. One wrong movement from anyone and he would likely strike at the mysterious Al. 

Said mystery seemed to make a move of his own, as he placed his hands beside his torso, and then made a traditional eastern bow towards Ceroba. It looked slightly ridiculous given his outfit, but the show of appreciation for her culture earned Al some more respect from the fox.

“I wish to help you on this journey. Therefore, I would gladly offer you my services as a trainer, should you desire it. I have been around for a very long time, and I have often found myself having to cast Judgment on people that deserved it. In fact, I am willing to go so far as to tell you I do not know anyone with more experience in providing Justice wherever it might be needed than myself, and I have met more people than there are grains of sand on this planet. Furthermore, I am experienced in most forms of fighting techniques, be they magical, physical or mental, and I can also help you learn how to keep control of your mind and emotions, as a means to help with the episodes of destructive negativity you are currently experiencing.”

Al stood up straight again and remained silent. The ball was in Ceroba’s court now, and it seemed that he was going to give her all the time she would need to give an answer.

She had to be honest, what Al offered her was very enticing. Here before her stood a being with more power than the laws of physics and magic deemed possible, and more wisdom than the few remaining monsters alive who had lived through the war that had seen her kind cast into its prison, extending his hand to her in sharing some of his knowledge and power. But most of all, he offered to help her become the better person she had wanted to be ever since that day with Clover. Granted, that had only been two weeks ago, but as the events of today had already shown her, she was relapsing into her old self again, just without the secrecy… well, most of it, anyway.

The more she thought about it, the more it seemed that… she might actually benefit from accepting the help Al offered. It would provide her almost everything she needed right now. A distraction to help with the troubles plaguing her mind. A means of achieving her new goal of helping monsterkind the way Clover had done. And maybe… maybe she could even use some of what he could teach her in her search for Kanako.

A part of her mind was shouting at her that she was thinking about going into a partnership with a complete stranger who could likely dust her in an instant, but that part was rapidly losing to the potential benefits that accepting would provide her. 

In a final act of desperation that voice yelled at her that she couldn’t be serious, but… she was. 

In fact, she might have never been so serious before in her life. And so, slowly, she started nodding her head.

“I… I’ll do it. I accept your offer.”

For the first time since he had made himself known, a smile crept onto Al’s face. It looked warm and genuine, as if the man was glad that Ceroba had accepted her offer. However, a sudden tug at her shoulder told her that not everyone agreed with her answer.

“Now hold it right there Ceroba, ya’ ain’t tellin’ me you’re actually thinkin’ of accepting that?”

“I am Star.”

“Oh come on, you’re literally willing to accept the help of someone you have known for minutes? Someone, mind you, that is also clearly not tellin’ us everything.” Starlo was clearly very annoyed by her decision, maybe even a little angry. But her mind was made up, and she also didn’t feel like either of them could judge this choice based on how long they knew Al.

“I am. And I don’t care that he isn’t telling everything. We also didn’t tell Clover everything when we met him, and yet he went along with all of it.”

Her remark about Clover looked like it genuinely hurt Starlo. Ceroba had to admit she didn’t like being this harsh against her best friend, but if he wasn’t going to support her in this, the least she wanted him to realise is that he couldn’t stop her.

“I am also more than willing to offer you my help too, Sheriff North Star. You have already clearly shown that you want to help your fellow monsters by means of providing an interesting form of entertainment, I could-”

Starlo broke Al off. “Nah, with all due respect to Ceroba, but I’m tired of people actin’ all shady and keepin’ secrets they shouldn’t.” The sheriff turned to walk away from the cave, giving one last glance over his shoulder to look at Ceroba. “I’m headin’ to Dina’s. Come visit me when you’ve got your head screwed on straight again.”

The fox in question could only stare at her friend leaving the cave in a hurry. She didn’t like seeing Star this upset, but this was something that she really wanted to do. What she needed  to do. For herself, for Clover, and for Kanako.

“I’m sorry your friend does not support your decision, although I do not blame him. He has enough problems of his own to deal with.”

Of course Star had his own issues. Ceroba had seen how the sheriff had reconnected with his family and made up with the Five again, but she had also noticed that Star had had a lot more sleepless nights since Clover was gone. She’d tried talking about it with him, but he had always shot her down by turning it back on her problems. And whilst she always appreciated the concern Star had for her, she had also come to be slightly annoyed that he wasn’t willing to talk about his own problems. And, well… Ceroba considered herself an expert on what happens if you don’t talk about problems.

“I can sense that you want to go after your friend. That is completely understandable, so if you want, we can continue discussing the rest of our deal tomorrow. And if you decide to not go through with it after all I will also understand.”

Ceroba turned back to Al and slowly nodded her head. He was right, she wanted to go after Starlo. Apparently everything that had happened today had also caused him to reach his boiling point. Maybe this was her chance to get through to him. Then again, he had tried getting through to her plenty of times before Clover and none had been successful.  Still, she wanted to show Starlo that she was there for him too.

That just left one point of discussion. “Where will I see you?”

“Hmm, would you mind meeting at your estate, say in the morning? I do not believe my presence in the Wild East would help anyone right now.”

Ceroba nodded her head once more. “I am inclined to agree. So yes, the estate will work.” She turned around to head after Starlo. But just like the sheriff had done she gave one last glance over her shoulder. “See you tomorrow.”

Whilst she was walking towards the exit of the cave she heard the familiar voice of Dalv behind her. “I-I’ll head out too. I’m sorry, but I am only just getting used to living around others again.”

The vampire sounded extremely on edge, and the speed with which he passed her not far out of the cave was even more indicative of that. Ceroba shook her head. Maybe she should have reacted a bit more like Dalv and Starlo given the whole situation. She had to admit that she was jumping off the deep end again. But something about Al made her think that it would be nothing like how she had acted around Clover.

A sad smile crept across her face. Thinking about the kid always did make her feel a little bad. Given her actions on that day, that didn’t surprise her in the slightest. But now she had a chance to make it up to him. To continue his legacy.

She chuckled slightly. Most of her actions that day had been because she had tried honouring Chujins legacy. But thanks to Clover she had come to realise that that legacy was better off left for what it was.

But it seemed she had once again found herself striving to honour a legacy. 

But this time?

This time something told her that it was a legacy worth fighting for.

— — — — — — — — — — —

She almost couldn’t believe the others hadn’t noticed her when they had left one by one, but she was so grateful that none of them had spotted her. Because if they had, Martlet would have had to explain why she had been on the edge of hyperventilating ever since that stranger, that… Al had shown up.

He couldn’t have shown up at a worse possible time. Today was supposed to be the day. Today she was finally going to close the chapter on Clover, leave it all behind her as best as she could. That was why she had initially proposed to hold this memorial to the others. It would have allowed them the chance to mourn the kid and for her to hopefully, finally get a chance to move beyond all the sleepless nights.

Because everything that had happened with Clover had left her mind a mess.

The kid had come into her life and had left a mark on it she would never be able to wipe away. Changed her look on her world, and life itself, forever. And although she suspected he hadn’t done so on purpose, in the end she was left with a whirlwind of questions and only breadcrumbs of information to try and answer them with.

And now here, at what was supposed to be a closure ceremony, stood before her a stranger who threatened to throw her back into that chaos.

A stranger, she now finally noticed, who was slowly walking up to her.

Martlet panicked. She tried putting a step backwards, but she had already backed herself against the wall earlier when he had first appeared. So she started moving along the wall, not caring about the occasional pain in her back from the sharper rocks. In her increasing panic, however, she missed a rock jutting out of the ground, and her right foot got caught on it, sending her tumbling to the floor.

Biting through the sudden surge of pain coming from her leg, Martlet raised herself up with her wings, quickly scanning around her for the stranger. Much to her relief, he had apparently stopped walking towards her when she fell.

“Please, don’t panic. I truly mean you no harm.”

Martlet felt anything other than calm. The sooner she could get away from this stranger, the better. She tried to stand up, but her foot protested, and she fell back down.

“You’ve sprained your ankle. The more you move the more you hurt it. Please, I really only wish to help you.”

She tried to stand up again, but her foot protested even more this time. The stranger was probably right about her spraining her ankle. Trying a third time would likely prove just as futile. Which meant that she was stuck here for now, in this dark cave, with a stranger she couldn’t get away from faster.

“I… I could heal it for you, if you’d allow me to.”

Martlet looked up at the stranger. His usually stoic face showed a hint of concern that she could feel was genuine. Given her situation, refusing would just prolong this odd status quo.

“S-sure. But do you have to come closer for that?”

“I do not. I can heal you from where I’m currently at.”

Given everything that he had already told Ceroba about his powers Martlet wasn’t surprised, but she was glad that he could nonetheless.

“Yes please.”

“Very well.”

The stranger had barely finished speaking when the pain in her leg stopped, briefly replaced by a comfortable warmth that disappeared almost as fast. To her surprise her back also felt a little better. Probably the little cuts she had gotten from walking against the wall so tightly being healed as well.

Martlet carefully tried standing up. Much to her delight her ankle didn’t protest in the slightest. Soon she had found her balance again, and just to make sure nothing was wrong anymore she briefly tried standing on her right foot only. It didn’t complain at all.

The bird let out a deep sigh and looked around again. The stranger… Al hadn’t moved an inch. She was also positioned closer to the exit then he was, so she could likely leave if she wanted to right now. On the other hand, it did seem like Al genuinely didn’t mean any harm, given her healed foot. 

Giving it some more thought, Martlet couldn’t suppress another sigh from escaping her beak. “Fine, I’ll hear you out.”

Al simply nodded. “Thank you. And before I say anything else I would like to Promise you that whilst, yes, I know everything that happened between you and Clover, that is a secret I shall never share. It is safe with me.”

There it was. There was the confirmation she dreaded to hear. Of course he would know about it all. At least he was willing to keep it to himself. Something told her he was very serious about that. And that did help to calm her down a little. “Thanks. That does mean something to me.”

“Now, I know what knowing the things you know can do to someone. Please believe me when I say that you are far from the first person I have met with your… condition.”

There were more like her? That was a possibility she never considered.

“You mean there are others out there that know the things I do?”

“Well, yes. Although not here. Not even in this entire universe, actually.”

Wait, what?

“This… universe? Are… are you not from here?” Martlet tried to sound as neutral as possible, but she had to admit that she was beyond puzzled now.

“I am not, no. I am from a place far away that no longer exists in the manner that it did when I lived there. However, I left that place as soon as I could, and I have been travelling between countless universes since. That… is all I am willing to tell you for now, though.”

So he was a… traveller of sorts, apparently. And ancient too, by the sound of it. And he had decided to interact with Martlet and her friends for some reason…

“In your case it is mostly your condition that spurred my desire to talk.”

Mind reader… almost forgot.

“It is not a power I use lightly. But I digress.”

“Alright, then why do you want to talk to me about my… condition, as you call it?”

“Because I have seen far too often what damage this condition can cause to a person, or a monster in your case. Especially so if the condition was acquired non-naturally.”

And Martlet was puzzled again. “Non-naturally? Some people get this naturally ?”

“Yes, this condition can happen naturally. In worlds similar to this one it is rather common, although I have not discerned whether or not it can also occur naturally in this one.”

She put a wing to her face. This was quickly becoming too much information for her to handle at this moment. “R-right. Anyway, you said something about my condition being able to cause me damage?”

“Yes, it can cause serious problems. Mostly to an individual's mental state, as I’m sure you yourself have already come to experience.”

Boy, had she ever. Every time she closes her eyes she risks experiencing nightmares. She could count the hours of full sleep she had since that day with Clover on one wing. By now it had gotten to a point where it was impeding her work significantly. Thankfully her reputation as a scatterbrain with a tendency to snooze on the job had allowed her to play it all off as her being her normal self.

“That is why I wished to talk with you. You are a kind and caring monster, and you frankly do not deserve the hand you’ve been dealt. Therefore I want to help you. I… can not take your condition away, but I want you to know that if you need someone to talk to about it, or if you have any questions pertaining to it, that I will always be available. Also, just as I offered Ceroba, I can help you better control your mind and your emotions if you so desire.”

So he could revive Clover, but not take away the unnatural part of her mind…

 If Martlet was honest with herself, forgetting everything was the thing she wanted most. But apparently that was the one thing that was impossible. Instead, Al offered to answer her questions. That sounded a lot less spectacular than what he had offered Ceroba, and quite honestly, Martlet didn’t know what she could do with that offer. It wasn’t what she needed right now. 

Not what she… wanted, right now.

Because what she wanted was to just go home and not have to think about anything for a while.

“I understand your hesitation, and while I would advise you to not underestimate the importance and potential of what I am offering you, I will not force you to give an answer right now. I will be staying in this Underground for a while longer, so just keep my offer in mind and approach me if you feel ready to.”

He wasn’t going to drop it entirely, it seemed. Martlet guessed that given what Al seemed to be she couldn’t ask for more than to be left alone until she was ready to make the next step. At least the way this conversation went had left no doubt in her mind that Al was being honest. He was keeping secrets, that was more than obvious. But on the other hand he had been patient and always putting her comfort first. After all, he had healed her foot and promised to not tell anyone about her problems. 

But she wasn’t ready. She needed some time to think about it. She needed to be alone for a while.

A simple nod from Al told her he already understood. She gave him a weak nod back and turned to leave the cave.

The moment the ceiling opened up enough for her to fly, she took a leap and stretched her wings.

Tonight was going to be yet another sleepless night.

— — — — — — — — — — —

Everything was wrong.

How could this have possibly happened?

Sure, normally the sudden arrival of some dumb new actor would have excited him, but this ‘Al’ reeked of trouble.

Flowey had retreated from the joke of a ‘memorial’ that the four idiots had set up for Clover. As if the kid deserved such a thing. All he had achieved was dying at the finish line and causing some monsters to weep for him. And he had left Flowey stuck again with no way of reaching the SOULs kept in the castle, which thanks to Clover now stood at a grand total of six. One more SOUL and Flowey would never get a chance again. Although, knowing King Fluffybuns, he might have a little more time after number seven is collected then monsterkind would like.

However, Clover and the SOULs didn’t matter right now. 

No, what mattered was the new arrival that had basically proclaimed himself to have the powers of a God. Even more so that said wannabe God had apparently been around since before Clover fell, and yet Flowey had never once gotten so much as an inkling that this überidiot had been in the Underground. 

This posed a problem to the flower. Never before had a resident of the Underground stayed out of his sight for so long. The longest had been that annoying skeleton, but after enough Resets the trashbag had just given up on trying to oppose him and kept low, much to Flowey’s amusement.

Oh well, at least he now knew that the birdbrain seemed to be desperately hiding something. The flower could make a good guess however, and if that were true… ohhohohoh… That would be fun.

But enough thinking. It was time to act! It was absolutely unacceptable that Flowey had let the überidiot roam free for so long in this timeline, but he wouldn’t give him that chance in the next!

Cackling to himself, Flowey brought up his trusted save screen. Time to give that idiot what for.

LOAD FAILED

Flowey stopped cackling, although his wicked grin stayed on. Surely this couldn’t be right? He tried again.

LOAD FAILED

He started laughing again. Did that überidiot really have the power to make Flowey believe he lost his? What an amazing joke! 

LOAD FAILED

He started laughing harder.

LOAD FAILED

And harder

LOAD FAILED

Still harder

LOAD FAILED

Until he couldn’t laugh anymore.

With the telltale sound of glass shattering Flowey smashed his save screen to bits. His usual smile had left his face, and he was panting from the amount of rage currently dancing around in his mind.

“I see that you have discovered that you no longer possess that power you so wickedly abuse.”

Flowey spun around. Had the überidiot really come to gloat at him? But no matter where he looked, he could not see the hideous human wannabe.

“You are probably thinking right now ‘oh, how could that idiot possibly overtake me as the most determined being in the Underground?’”

He sounded behind Flowey again, and very close this time. In fact, he would have to be standing right next to him to sound that close. But the only thing standing that close was the blue stem of an… 

An Echo Flower…

As if on cue, that horrid voice once again sounded from the dimly glowing plant.

“Well, let me give you a different question: ‘How could that idiot possibly take me over as the most determined being in the Underground, when he has been around for two months ?”

Flowey laughed involuntarily again. This couldn’t be more than a sick joke. He had used his powers plenty enough the last two months, especially when Clover was running around dying left right and centre. And he hadn’t heard any unusual stories of dusted or missing monsters since Clover had given up.

“You see, little flower, I have this ability that allows me to artificially suppress the level of Determination that I possess. However, now that I have made myself known, I can no longer allow you to interfere with my… goals.”

Oh… oh, Flowey was going to enjoy ripping this one to shreds. How DARE he assume he could be the one in control? This was HIS world, HIS playground, and he wasn’t going to let this… this… IDIOT get in his way.

“I do suggest you simply accept that you are just like anyone else now, and play by the rules you have avoided for so long. For you see, little flower, I do not merely assume that I am the one in control. I know I am, and nothing you could do can change that.”

The Echo Flower ceased to be in an instant as vines and friendliness pellets bombarded it from all sides.

If the idiot wanted war, Flowey would give him war.

A coughing noise from another Echo Flower nearby drew Flowey’s attention to it. Did the überidiot have even more to tell him? Really?

“I must warn you though. While I can be generous to those I consider friends, those that I do not like will get naught but death from me. Interfere in their lives, and you will not live long enough to regret it.”

Yeah right. Flowey had lost count of how often such threats had been made towards him. Every time he had decided to slaughter the Underground either the fish, the king or sometimes even a nobody had yelled at him that he would come to regret his actions. They had never come true.

“Although, to a creature like you the thought of death might not be as… torturous as it would be to most. After all, you would know it well, wouldn’t you, young prince?”

Flowey froze. That idiot wouldn’t. 

He couldn’t.

How could he… 

Know . 

A wicked grin spread across his face. He summoned more pellets than he had ever summoned before.

“No!” The first wave of pellets destroyed the Echo Flower’s petals.

“One!” The second wave destroyed what was left of the bud.

“Knows!” The third wave destroyed its stem all the way to the ground.

“THAT!” The final wave peppered the ground around where the Echo Flower stood, destroying any and all roots the blue flower had had.

“I must admit however, your case has always intrigued me. So play by my rules, and I might come to talk to you in person. Until then, Asriel.”

With a howling shriek a whirlwind of pellets and vines destroyed all Echo Flowers standing in the room.

When the storm of weaponry finally died down, all that remained were scraps of blue scattered here and there.

Nothing hinted at a yellow flower ever having been there at all.

Chapter Text

When the garden you tend dies

And the doors that lead inside

Are locked and those who try

To talk their way in lie

The old estate gate opened the way something of its age likes to do. Rusted hinges groaned in protest against the attempt to force them made by the furry paws of the monster trying to get inside the estate. 

Ceroba had to flatten her ears down as far as she could to keep those sounds from worsening her already rather bad headache, her excellent hearing proving a curse in this situation.

The gate was even more of an issue than it had been the last time she had visited the estate. The hinges had always suffered from the dry and dusty air dumping sand in them, but a sandstorm must have passed through the previous night, for it took the fox nearly five minutes to open the gate enough to let her through.

The old padlock had suffered even worse. It was completely locked up, which forced Ceroba to destroy it with a small bellbomb. The explosion wasn’t big, but it was enough to blow the lock apart in a shower of tiny fragments of brownish metal.

The fox let herself mourn the destruction of the padlock for a moment before she had started attempting to open the gate. Whilst a simple padlock would have been of no emotional value to most monsters, this one had been one of the few remaining items scattered around the estate that reminded Ceroba of the happier times she had spent here with her family.

After all, it had been the same padlock that was placed on the gate when she and Chujin had first opened the gate to their then brand new house, with nothing but hopes and dreams for the future.

After wiping her kimono clean of any sand or rust that might’ve gotten stuck to it from pressing against the gate, Ceroba turned her attention forward, to the place she had once so lovingly called home.

Now, however?

Now it was mostly just a reminder of just how much she had lost.

But, that feeling was slowly starting to dissipate.

She had come here early, and the swelterstone was still partially covered up. This gave the Dunes the kind of look that Ceroba had often seen at the end of Starlo’s human movies, when the sun was often setting, letting a blanket of golden-orange light cover the entire horizon.

As she approached the house she took in its silhouette, which, set against that backdrop of gold and orange, made for a spectacular yet eerie sight. It reminded her of how haunted houses were described in the few human made horror books she had read.

Ceroba found the edges of her snout rising up ever so slightly. 

The Ketsukane estate fit that description better than the residents of the Oasis could ever realise.

Ceroba passed by the old gardens. In their prime they had been full of vibrant flowers, trees, and everything in between. But that had been when the Dunes were still the Meadows, before the large swelterstone had been uncovered. After that had happened keeping the garden in good shape had proven impossible, and Ceroba had been forced to watch as it slowly withered away.

She wasn’t lost on the fact that, during that same period, her own life had withered as well.

She finally reached the steps leading up to the small veranda, but before she went further in, she placed a hand on one of the ornamental bells that adorned the corners of the fencing and looked up at the house. She took a deep breath and allowed her eyes to appreciate the outside of the house. Thankfully her headache was starting to slowly disappear.

Unlike the garden, the house was still in good shape. That was partially thanks to Martlet, who had spent almost three days diligently replacing any rotten planks or sandblasted decorations. The bird had been impressed by just how sturdy the house was. For the time it had sat abandoned in the blazing heat and sandy winds of the Dunes she had found relatively little actually needed fixing.

Ceroba admired how the ever increasing light from the swelterstone gleamed off of the outside of the house. She had stopped helping Martlet with replacing woodwork after the chips incident, but together they had also given the place a new lick of paint. It hadn’t been too big a task, but Ceroba had found herself enjoying the menial work with the bird a lot. 

Martlet hadn’t been able to keep her beak shut most of the time, rambling about topics ranging from odd rules in the Royal Guard handbook to her latest woodworking experiments. Ceroba had mostly stayed silent and let the bird speak, only occasionally giving some remarks on the stories of her friend.

It had been a welcome distraction, and the end result had also been worth it.

The house hadn’t looked so good since before Chujin had passed away, Ceroba being too busy caring for her sick husband and young child to care about keeping up with maintenance in those last months. 

And after everything that happened after, well, she just hadn’t cared anymore. 

That neglect showed itself in an ugly way the day she abandoned it for moving in with the Feisty Five.

When she had cast one last look on the house on that day, she saw the paintwork in all its decay, slowly disappearing from the constant waves of sand blasting against it and the heat that had caused it to start peeling off in places. 

She had seen the windows covered in grime and dust, not having been cleaned in half a year. 

She had seen the veranda in all its chaos, flower pots and garden tools strewn all over the place. 

And she had seen the garden, completely withered away. Not a single green leaf had been left in a place that now looked just as dead and barren as the Dunes that surrounded the estate, if not even moreso. Dried up trees, broken flower pots and tumbleweed had been all that remained of the once vibrant and colourful flora flanking the path leading to the house.

It had all served as a cruel reminder about just how badly Ceroba had let her life decay, wither and waste away.

She had turned around running away with tears in her eyes, desperate to reach the Wild East as if it were a safe haven against her past and its mistakes. In her hurry she hadn’t even bothered to lock up the gate.

But now, now the house was something she could look at again with some semblance of pride, Of trust. Of feeling like home. It’s still freshly painted walls glistening in the morning light, showing no signs of decay anywhere. The windows had also been cleaned, and the veranda was neatly reorganised.

All in all it looked like the house was ready to serve its owner again. To provide her a place of warmth, comfort and safety. It had been dormant for too long, and it would welcome her return with open arms… doors?

She wouldn’t move in just yet. She couldn’t. She was only just starting to return to a somewhat normal life and the house still had too many bad memories attached to it.

But it felt like her home again, that much she felt sure of.

Ceroba walked up the last steps and put her paw on the door. By now her headache had subsided to the point it was mostly a nuisance, but she suspected it would linger for most of the day.

The headaches were an unfortunate side-effect she had gotten from no longer drinking every day. Dina had assured her that they would eventually go away, but for now they stubbornly refused to leave her alone. And this morning's headache was being particularly bothersome. They always appeared to be worse if she woke up early in the morning.

And she had never been up as early as she had today.

Ceroba hadn’t planned on waking up so early, but she’d hardly gotten any sleep tonight. The events of yesterday had kept repeating over and over in her mind. The memorial, the episode, Al showing up and… the argument with Starlo.

She had followed him back to the Wild East so soon after his departure that at some points of the journey home she could see him walk in the distance, but she had chosen to not catch up to him.

She had also not gone to Dina’s bar straight away, instead talking with the posse about how the memorial had gone. They had asked her why Starlo was acting rather on edge, and she had lied to them saying that he simply missed Clover a lot and that the memorial had brought those feelings back up.

She didn’t like lying anymore.

Only after reassuring the posse had she headed into the bar to talk it out with her friend, and she’d found Starlo sitting in the corner where the poker gang usually sat. He… hadn’t been in a good mood.

Ceroba approached the table where Starlo was currently sitting, staring into his adult soda as if he were deep in thought. He didn’t seem to notice her presence right away.

She sat down on one of the free stools, careful not to make too much noise. The bar was mostly empty, but she didn’t want to attract the attention of the few patrons currently present.

Starlo was still staring into his drink, absentmindedly shaking it around in a slow circling pattern.

After waiting for almost a minute, her nerves got the better of her, and Ceroba gave up on getting the sheriff to notice her of his own accord. So, she started tapping her fingers on the table. That seemed to get his attention. He put the adult soda down and looked up to see who had shown up.

When he recognized Ceroba his eyes narrowed and his face lost its curious look, settling on a more neutral expression.

“Ceroba, didn’t expect ya’ here so soon.” He took a swig from the soda, before putting the bottle back down on the table with enough force to cause her own glass of water to make a small jump. “I take it that means ya’ got back to yer senses then?” The look on his face betrayed obvious scepticism, like he already knew his question was rhetorical.

Ceroba knew what answer he was hoping for, and that combined with the glare he was giving her right now didn’t make her feel good about what she was about to tell him. She could feel her ears droop down slightly. “No, I have not, Star. This is something I really want to try.”

Starlo seemed completely unfazed by her answer. Instead, he simply returned to his soda, took a sip from it and proceeded to stare ahead at the wall in front of him. “Then why come ‘ere? I thought I made myself clear when I told ya’ I’d talk again if ya’ acted normal again.”

Ceroba took some of her water, taking in the feeling of the cold liquid laying on her tongue as much as she could to help her calm down a little. Starlo’s reaction wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it still hurt a little more than she had anticipated. Still, she hoped she could make him understand why this was important for her.

“Listen Star, I…” She couldn’t stand looking at her friend anymore, so she simply resolved to look at her glass of water. “You know how down in the dumps I have been for the longest time, and that that led me to do some… questionable stuff.”

Starlo briefly glanced over to her, before taking another sip from his drink. He also looked down, causing his hat to obscure his face from Ceroba. “So? We’ve been over that… a lot.” He swirled his bottle around. “Everyone here has already told ya’ we ain’t mad no more, and we want to help ya’.” 

Ceroba was starting to feel more and more uneasy. Her left paw was slowly rubbing over her other arm, which was grabbing her glass of water tightly. She looked over at the sheriff again, desperate to show him that she wasn’t trying to hurt his feelings. “I-I know that Star! But I… I know you’re dealing with your own feelings right now, a-and I don’t want to add to your worry.”

He tilted his head back up again, but he did not look at her. His face showed a smile, although it certainly wasn’t genuine. “So instead you choose to accept help from a shady stranger. And that isn’t supposed to bother me?”

Ceroba flinched. He had a point there. She returned to looking down, except this time she stared all the way to the ground. She could feel her fur starting to stand straight. This wasn’t going at all like what she hoped.

“Well? Any more reasons yer gonna give me for this “solution” of yours?” Starlo’s voice was starting to sound annoyed. Ceroba was running out of time. “What, do tell, does that weird fella’ have that I don't?”

Ceroba looked back up at her friend. The face staring back at her was clearly less than impressed by her reasoning so far. By now Starlo was clearly frowning, and his eyes had narrowed so far that it felt as if they stared right through her.

“W-well-” Her eyes were desperately avoiding contact with the sheriff’s. “I know that he’s a bit odd, and perhaps even a bit scary, what with how much he seems to know about us. But something about the way that he spoke, the way he acted, I… I think that he was being genuine.” A lump was threatening to form in her throat and her arms were starting to shake, causing the water in her glass to shift from one side to the other.

Starlo merely closed his eyes and shook his head. “Ya’ thought he was being genuine?” He turned around and started to get up. 

“You know what?” He turned his back on her. Ceroba started feeling sweat drip down her face. “I thought you were being genuine when ya’ asked the kid to help ya’ find Kanako.”

The ground fell away beneath Ceroba. Time seemed to stop. All she could for the moment was sit there, completely frozen.

In any other conversation she would have considered such a comment a low blow. But Starlo was right to hold it against her in this case. He was holding up a mirror for her. A mirror she couldn’t ignore or refute.

The sheriff put some G on Dina’s counter and started heading for the exit. Seeing her chance at resolving this argument literally walk out the door Ceroba panicked. She jumped up from the table and ran after her friend. Just outside the saloon entrance she caught up to him and grabbed him by the arm.

"S-Star, please!" I-I know that it all seems a bit hasty, but I… I need this. I want to get better, to have a purpose again. A-and I think he can help me find that! I… I thought you wanted me to get help, right? Right?!” 

Her voice was all over the place, pitching up and down together with the sobs she was now desperately trying to suppress. She knew that she was likely coming off as pleading with him, but at this point that was basically what she really wanted. She wanted to plead with Starlo to understand. To have him tell her that her choice would be alright. That he would support her too with this.

She needed him to understand.

She needed him to support her.

She needed her friend.

Starlo just stood still. He didn’t try to remove her arm from his or get her to move. After what seemed like a lifetime to the fox he finally responded. He dropped his accent, and his tone was icy cold.

“If you’d rather put your trust into a stranger then in me, go right ahead. I won’t stop you.”

Ceroba felt all remaining energy leave her in an instant. Her snout drooped down, her ears fell flat and her arms let go of Starlo’s, dropping idly by her side.

Starlo, on the other hand, started walking towards the Five’s base, only briefly stopping before the door to utter one last emotionless comment.

 “Goodnight, Ceroba.” 

With that he disappeared into the base, leaving the fox to fall on her knees, drained of all hope.

It had taken her almost an hour to get up from where she had fallen. After that she had wandered around the town square in a daze for what felt like another hour, before finally her body had told her it couldn’t stay awake much longer and she had reluctantly joined the Five in their base for the night, although the amount of sleep she had gotten was likely less then the time she had spent outside.

Instead she had spent most of her time in bed hugging herself for comfort and thinking everything through over and over. 

At one point a part of her mind had begged her to get up and wake Starlo to apologise, but her more rational side thankfully prevailed.

Still, it had caused her to realise just how much she was relying on Starlo’s opinion when it came to making choices. Ever since moving in with him and his posse she had tried everything to make sure she wouldn’t lose her last and only friend, which led to her usually picking Starlo’s preferred option when confronted with a choice. Only when it came to talking about her past or his attempts at getting her to join the posse had she always managed to choose for herself without hesitation.

And when her choosing for herself one day led to another child almost dying at her hands as a result, that behaviour worsened considerably.

So much so, in fact, that when thinking things through at night she had found herself almost deciding to agree with Starlo and drop the entire thing with Al. But, her desire to finally climb out of her pit of misery won over in the end.

After that she had finally drifted off to sleep, but it didn’t last long. Less than an hour later she had been awoken by the first signs of light from the swelterstone.

She had slept long enough to cause her that annoying headache, though.

Ceroba had almost instantly set off for her estate, opting to get breakfast at Oasis Town instead of in the base, since she did not want to wake up the Five, most of all Starlo. She hadn’t been in the mood for another confrontation.

Yet here she was at her estate, waiting for another.

Ceroba had to give Starlo one thing. Al was acting… shady at best. He seemed to be honest about his willingness to help her and her friends, but with how little she knew of him this entire ordeal could go in any direction as of now.

Star might end up being right about her doing the same as Clover had done with her.

But Clover had given her a chance regardless of how she acted. And so, she was going to give Al a chance.

At least that might put her somewhat even with the kid.

However, she wasn’t going to throw away Starlo’s opinion completely. The time spent awake in bed had given her enough time to think about how she would approach the situation, and she had settled on what she hoped Al would see as a fair compromise. 

She would accept his offer, If he would be honest about himself. 

She knew that if Clover had attempted the same with her she’d have shot it down immediately, but she hoped that Al was better then she was.

A gentle breeze reminded Ceroba of the fact she was still standing on the veranda. She shook her head and finally opened the door.

Starlo could wait for now.

It was time to prepare for the arrival of the third greatest gamble of her life.

She quickly left the entrance hall and made her way to the kitchen, not even bothering to glance at the master bedroom door.

The kitchen was arguably the room of the house Ceroba felt most comfortable in. It had the least negative memories clinging to it and since her time with Clover she had started to rediscover her passion for cooking.

Thanks to Martlet the kitchen had gotten its own table, with just two seats for now. Ceroba had asked the bird to make the little seating area since she didn’t feel comfortable at all in the dining room for… obvious reasons.

Regardless, it had seen hardly any use since the fox didn’t invite guests over all that often. Starlo had been around once or twice and Martlet used it during her time working here, and that had just about been it.

But it was the perfect place to have a chat with Al.

The table had gotten a little dusty since her last visit, so Ceroba got out the duster she kept stored in the drawer under the cutting board. It wasn’t necessarily needed, but she figured since Al wasn’t here yet, she might as well. Given the small size of the table it took no more than three wipes.

Content that the kitchen now looked presentable enough, Ceroba walked over to the fridge and opened it. On the bottom plank were a couple bottles of ramune neatly stacked on top of each other. 

She grabbed a strawberry flavoured one for herself, but what taste would Al like?

“Lemon-lime is good enough for me.”

The sudden voice from behind startled the fox, her fur briefly standing straight up. Thankfully she hadn’t put her head closer to the fridge or she would’ve hit it against the door.

She grabbed a lemon-lime from the plank before standing up and turning around, closing the fridge with her foot in the process.

Al was standing in the hallway she had also come from, leaning against the wall with one elbow, while his other arm was tucked into the pocket of his leather jacket.

Ceroba put the drinks on the table, before putting a hand to her head.

Seems the headache had returned thanks to Al’s little stunt.

She grimaced as she felt that painful presence in her head intensify again. “Hello to you too.”

Al pushed himself off of the wall, putting the hand he had supported himself with into a pocket as well. He had an apologetic smile on his face. “Sorry, was that too sudden?”

“Yes.” Ceroba sat herself down at the table rubbing her forehead with one hand, while bringing her strawberry ramune to her snout with the other. Its cool refreshing taste helped distract her from the incessant thumping now screaming for her attention. When she put the bottle back on the table she looked up at her guest. “Why’d you let yourself in anyway?”

Al was about to sit down when she had said that, but her question made him stop moving for a second. After some time the only sound he could make was a short “ah” followed by him clicking his tongue.

Ceroba could only raise her eyebrow at his response. “So that is your normal way of entering someone else’s house?”

Al inhaled deeply while finally sitting down, but he refused eye contact for now. “Yeah, it’s kind of a force of habit.”

Ceroba could perfectly picture Starlo slapping a hand in his face right about now. Maybe he had been more right then she gave him credit for.

Al started tapping his fingers on the table in a way that betrayed his apparent nerves at how this meeting was starting.

Then again, maybe Starlo was afraid of nothing.

“I-I’m sorry,” Al started rubbing his chin, “I am not used to… well, eh, any of this.”

Ceroba stopped rubbing her forehead. Why was this strange figure who had been so upfront and confident yesterday suddenly so clumsy and awkward?

She put the paw she had been rubbing her head with down on the table with a bit of force to get Al’s attention. “What do you mean by ‘you are not used to this’?” She asked quizzically. “Do you mean you don’t offer help that often?”

Al gripped his ramune with a slightly unsteady hand, and his eyes were focussed on the bottle as if he was talking to it rather than to her. “W-well, more just the entire thing of…” He looked away completely now. “Acting social.”

If Ceroba hadn’t had her excellent ears she might not have caught those last two words.

She was starting to believe she should’ve agreed with Starlo. Just what was up with this guy?

“You are not used to being social?” The fox took a sip of her drink to let Al stew a little on the fact she had heard him clearly. “Should I consider myself lucky that you’re even trying for me then?”

Al finally looked up at her, but his expression was still a little distant, as if he was deep in thought.

He didn’t need to think long though, it seemed, as his face suddenly took on a far more serious expression, the dim-yellow colour of his pupils looking sharply at Ceroba. “I’ll leave that up to you to decide.”

He took a sip of his own ramune before staring at the fox again.  “But if it’s alright with you, I’d like to start discussing our deal now.” His smile told her he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

She was getting pretty nervous now. Al seemed to flip on a dime between characters. And while she considered herself an excellent judge of character, he was acting too unpredictable for her to be sure of what exactly he was doing or planning.

At least it appeared he had a side to him that wasn’t filled to the brim with confidence.

A cough from Al told her that he was expecting an answer. Had she been silent for that long?

He shook his head as if she had just asked that question out loud. But she hadn’t, right?

Then why shake his…

Oh, wait.

His mind reading.

She’d almost forgotten that rather frightful fact.

And he had just overheard her thoughts.

Ceroba inhaled deeply. Whatever happened to Al just now had stopped and he was back in full control of the situation. So, time to move on.

“Yes, I guess we can start talking about that now.” She tried her best to sound unbothered by Al’s sudden change of attitude, but her voice sounded a little weaker than she would’ve liked.

Al just gave a short and stern nod with his head to acknowledge her answer. “So, before we go over the details, I’d like to hear from you what exactly you want, or need, help with.”

The directness of the question didn’t help to improve her mood. Al wasn’t one to waste time, it seemed.

Or was this another case of his apparent lack of social skills?

Another cough from across the table.

Right, mind reading.

Ceroba really couldn’t deal with that and her headache at the same time right now.

She downed another swig of ramune. It helped, but not enough.

She let out a deep sigh. “Look, I know you want me to think about what I need help with.-” She started, her tone a mix of annoyance and anger. “-but could you maybe not invade my mind while I’m doing that? It’s personal information—” She started softly growling to drive her point home. “—and I want to keep it personal for now.” 

Al briefly raised an eyebrow before he returned his face to its normal look of pure stoicism. “Very well.” He answered rather casually. “But I have no visible way of showing I am not doing it, so I hope that you can trust me on this.”

Given how the conversation was going so far, Ceroba found it hard to give any meaningful worth to his word.

However, his point about not having a way to visibly show he wasn’t using an invisible power was, annoyingly, sound.

It would just have to do.

Ceroba made a show of narrowing her eyes, but nodded nonetheless. “Very well, I’ll take you at your word.” If her look hadn’t convinced Al she wasn’t entirely happy with the outcome, her voice would definitely have.

If Al cared about her little theatre act he showed no sign of it. His face was the same wall of stone it had been yesterday. All he did was nod in return and just… stare ahead of himself.

Not wanting to stare at Al the entire time she was thinking and with nothing better to do Ceroba also decided to stare ahead of herself, focussing on the now half-empty bottle of ramune she had started idly sliding from one paw to the other.

Now, how best to approach this?

With everything that had gone down yesterday evening Ceroba hadn’t really been able to think about what kind of help she wanted, so she didn’t have a clear answer ready.

What was it she had told the others at the memorial again?

She knew it was something to do with Clover, but the general chaos of the past 24 hours and her sleep deprivation were making it hard to remember it all that well.

So, the fox guessed that her best shot was to… 

To…

…

To think back on that day. 

That day, when she had almost caused what little she had left to go up in smoke.

That day, when she had lost what little faith she had left in her own decision making.

That day, when the appearance of a human in her town rocked her beliefs to her very SOUL.

In the two weeks since then her mind had thought back on that day plenty of times, but never because she wanted to.

This would be the first time she would willingly reflect on that nightmare.

Ceroba could only hope that she wouldn’t end up in another episode.

Maybe focussing on a single moment would help prevent that.

So, she focussed on the first encounter where Clover had genuinely surprised her.

Ceroba had to take a moment to adjust to the sudden change in atmosphere. 

Up until now the Steamworks had been largely the same: giant pools of pinkish coolant, half-rusted catwalks and leaky pipes hissing steam everywhere.

But this place looked nothing like that.

It appeared that she and Clover had stumbled into a greenhouse of sorts. Though it looked just as derelict as the rest of the facility.

Boxes with gardening tools stood here and there as if they had been abandoned in a hurry.

Robots of a type they hadn’t encountered before lay dormant on the floor, their batteries drained so long ago that they were in various stages of being overgrown by the local plantlife.

Cracked flower pots lined old shelves, some of which contained nothing but dirt, but most had peculiar white flowers growing in them.

Those same white flowers had seemingly overtaken the ground of the greenhouse in its entirety, and blanketed the entire place in a smell so unnatural Ceroba had never expected a plant capable of producing it.

She had already voiced her concern about the potential hazards of touching the stuff, but that did nothing to deter the human she was currently guiding towards the lab from inspecting every nook and cranny.

She stood behind Clover as the cowboy was inspecting the completely ruined fountain standing near the entrance.

Part of her felt sorry for the kid.

But this had to be done.

She had to get him to the lab in Hotland.

She had to use his SOUL to complete the serum. 

For the sake of Chujin’s legacy.

And… for Kanako.

Ceroba had initially been quite annoyed that the Steamworks weren’t as lifeless as she had expected, but by now the encounters with the local robot population had proven to be excellent opportunities to gauge the purity of Clover’s SOUL for herself.

The cowboy was none the wiser that with every battle he had fought in this place Ceroba felt more and more justified in her choice to use him for her plans.

The pair slowly made their way through the overgrown greenhouse, and had now found themselves in a long hallway lined with rows of glass on either side, supported by the occasional steel pillar.

The floor was still entirely covered in the odd white plants, but thankfully someone had had the decency of laying down wooden planks that allowed Ceroba to not have to walk on the stuff too much.

Clover didn’t seem to mind at all, however. Always curious, his boots were already getting covered with pieces of stems and petals. No, the kid was far more interested in fiddling with a screen attached to one of the steel pillars.

To the surprise of both the screen suddenly turned on, showing a message sent by the head office to the Steamworks science division. Apparently management had been aware that the main generator was about to give up the ghost and was looking for alternatives to keep the Underground supplied of power.

The duo continued down the hallway, stumbling upon more screens from time to time. Each screen had a message talking about the power problem, gradually painting a clear picture. By the time Ceroba and Clover reached the last screen, the fox had figured out the puzzle.

With the generator reaching the end of its life the scientists working here had tried various options to provide a temporary power source until a more permanent replacement could be made. Eventually they had discovered a type of white plant that was capable of producing electricity, but because of its unique properties, using them required part of the team to work on them constantly. Still, the plan had been greenlit, and a greenhouse was constructed.

The same greenhouse she was currently walking through.

Clover activated the last screen. It was a message from the head office again, sent some time after the go ahead had been given. Whoever sent it had apparently found a solution for the staffing problem and had promised to send the blueprints for that solution quickly. The mention of blueprints for staffing issues made Ceroba briefly ponder if Chujin had been fired because his work had been taken over by a walking hunk of metal.

Not long after that the hallway had made a sharp turn to the right. Ceroba could see that just beyond the corner the path elevated slightly, turning into a flora-free metal walkway. She couldn’t wait to not have the feeling of weird electricity producing plants under her feet.

However, Clover didn’t make for the elevated path right away, forcing her to stay on the eerily fluffy carpet a little longer. Instead, he walked over to a box put in the far corner. It was bigger than most other boxes Ceroba had seen in the greenhouse so far. And upon closer inspection, something blue was sticking out of it.

Clover looked around the box inquisitively before grabbing the blue thing and pulling it out of the box. It turned out to be a blueprint. Now, Ceroba always considered herself blessed with an above-average eyesight, but from her distance and in the dim light of the greenhouse she couldn’t really make out what the white pictures on the blue paper were showing.

Clover didn’t seem to give too much about what it showed either, for after just a minute he rolled the blueprint back up and put it in the box again.

It was probably nothing important anyway.

Seemingly satisfied enough with how much he had checked the box and its contents, the cowboy finally made for the elevated path. The fox gladly followed him.

This part of the greenhouse was far more packed with boxes and shelves full of flower pots than anywhere else. Ceroba guessed that this was where the plants were actually being grown back when the place was still operational.

Progress through the greenhouse slowed to a crawl now, with Clover checking each and every box that was accessible from the path. Most contained nothing useful, but he did manage to find a Gravity Granola in one, and some… Grassy Fries in another.

Whoever had taught this child to eat literal grass would fit right in a mental institute.

Ceroba didn’t like that he took his sweet time, but if she tried to coerce Clover into moving for the exit faster he might get suspicious.

Thankfully the amount of boxes that the cowboy could reach ran out after a while, and all that was left was to cross a couple circular patches of those weird plants that for some reason had been placed right in the middle of the pathway.

But something was… off..

When the pair walked over the first patch, it felt like walking on a very hard surface instead of the soft texture of dirt that Ceroba expected. It felt like walking on metal.

The only natural thing about it was the crunching sound plants made when trampled.

Her fur was starting to rise up now, and her ears were moving in every direction in an attempt to make sure no strange sounds went unnoticed.

And when they walked over the second patch, despite more obvious crunching, that was precisely what she heard.

“What was that?”

A noise, coming from somewhere directly in front of them. But it was somewhat muffled, as if it had originated behind a solid object. But the only solid object ahead was the wall that contained the exit door.

Unless…

“I…”

The robotic voice sounded way too close for comfort.

Ceroba’s fur was standing straight up now, adrenaline starting to rush through her body. Her right paw was aching to hold her staff.

Suddenly, the last patch… moved. It rose slightly up, before settling down again.

But then it went up. It rose to Clover’s height, then Ceroba’s, and finally it towered above the two slack jawed travellers.

Neither were paying much attention to the patch, however.

No, it was what was beneath the patch that had them staring on with a sudden, freezing fear.

The patch had been a… hat of sorts. And it rested on top of a giant robot.

A robot whose dormant eyes suddenly flashed a bright red.

“AM… AWAKE”

The robot moved its right arm out of the hole it had been sitting in. As more and more of the arm became visible it also became wider, until finally it’s hand showed up.

Well, if a giant metal plate with four equally giant sized claws could be described as such.

The hand slammed into the floor of the pathway with such force it almost made Ceroba lose her balance.

With the right hand now firmly placed on the floor, the robot moved up its left as well. The arm came down on the ground with the same force as the right one, but Ceroba had prepared herself this time.

The force still shook her entire field of view.

Both hands on the ground, the robot proceeded to extend itself to its greatest height. Which, much to Ceroba’s horror, turned out to be almost twice her own size.

Although, one glance at the robot’s torso told Ceroba that it would have easily stood even taller, had its entire bottom half not been missing. Only a spinal cord made of metal and some loosely hanging wires remained of whatever had once made this machine whole.

This could spell serious trouble.

“GUARDENER - MODEL 02 -_ ST_ATUS,  D_MAGED. .   .”

The voice box of the robot, which was apparently of a type called Guardener, was in bad shape, capable only of speaking most words with a glitchy stutter, as well as rising and lowering in octaves at random.

That wasn’t the only thing clearly wrong with the machine. As it spoke it’s head made irrational movements and its eyes flickered on and off.

Ceroba could only hope that the fact that it recognized it was damaged meant that its software was still functional.

She hoped this, because if this machine was like all other robots encountered so far, the name of the design contained the purpose it was built for. Which meant that in this case, this robot wasn’t just a gardener, but also a guard.

And if it was still capable of acting as a guard, there was no knowing how tough taking it down would be.

“OH, HE-HELLO THERE. WAS IT YOU WHO DISTURBED THE FLOR A? ?”

Ceroba couldn’t help but notice how the white flower that had drooped down from over the edge of the patch seemed almost like the cord of a lamp.

She briefly fantasised that pulling it would shut this malfunctioning monstrosity down before it could cause any trouble.

“I ASK YOU TO PLEASE HAVE MORE _RESPECT.”

The robot had somehow managed to ensure its voice box stayed on one octave for the entire sentence. 

Unfortunately, it was an octave that made it clear that its statement was more of a threat than anything else.

Acting out of pure fear in the moment, Ceroba had to take a second to notice that the robot was awaiting an answer. She wanted to move, but her body was still refusing to listen, so all she could do was stammer out a weak “Um, we apologise. Won’t happen again.”

“DO NOT WORRY. _ SEEING T;HAT THE CHILD IS SO Y-Y-YOUNG, IT IS FORGI>ABLE.”

Ceroba felt her entire body calm down. It seemed like the robot was programmed to keep age in mind when apprehending offenders. Maybe conflict could be avoided after all.

“I WILL REPORT THE_INCIDENT AS A LEVEL 3-033- - _ _ 4LLEE”

The Guardener started glitching out.

Ceroba quickly prayed to the Angel that it wouldn’t mean anything bad.

“ EV-EL 10 OFFENCE.”

Uh oh.

“LEVEL 10 MEANS - THE TERMINATION OF THE TRAMPLER.”

Ceroba felt her entire body stand on edge again. She needed to diffuse this immediately, but in her desperation the only response her mind could think of was to cry out “Hold on!”

“FAREWELL.”

Before she had time to do anything else, white flowers shot up all around her and Clover, wrapping themselves around them. Ceroba could feel her arms, her waist, her legs, even her head, be constrained by white vines and roots that were far more powerful than she had imagined plants to be capable of.

“Ack!”

Within seconds she was completely stuck, unable to move much more than turning her head slightly. As it was, summoning her staff would be futile.

She was still trying to fight against the constraining plants when the world turned black, except for a single spot right inbetween her, Clover, and the Guardener. It shone bright yellow.

The robot had engaged in battle, and Clover was the target.

She couldn’t let her plan fail here. She couldn’t let the kid die to some dumb robot glitching out. But she was useless right now. All she could do was call out her predicament to Clover and hope he could handle this.

She tried her best to glance over at the cowboy. It was a fight against the vines all the way, but eventually she managed to get the human in her eyesight. 

What she saw was not good.

Clover was even more restrained then she was, with white plants also covering his mouth, satchel and gun. Only one arm seemed capable of any movement, and with it he could do little but move his SOUL to avoid the Guardener’s attacks.

If they didn’t manage to break free from the natural prison they found themselves in, he would eventually be done for.

“We need to find a way out of this! Fast!” She yelled out. It was the most obvious advice ever, but she just couldn’t think of anything else right now. And judging by his attempt at nodding, Clover had the exact same thought.

Then, as if the situation wasn’t bad enough already, her mind decided to remind her that since Clover was the main target and she was merely pulled into the battle as an extra, she wasn’t going to be allowed a turn of her own.

Surviving this rampaging maniac of metal would be solely up to Clover.

Luckily, Clover appeared to be more prepared than she was, keeping a cool head and his eyes locked onto the robot for any potential attacks it might dish out.

What dampered that little bit of positivity however was that Clover seemed incapable of doing much more than try and loosen the hold the plants had on his partially free hand during his turn.

To Ceroba’s delight, it had some effect. Two of the weaker strings let go and fell to the ground. The strings were apparently connected to the plants keeping her in place too, because she could move her left leg a little more than before.

Maybe Clover could get them free, if he stayed alive long enough.

However, it was now the Guardeners turn.

“I HAVE INCAPACITATED YOUR OPTIONS.”

That’s a battle mechanic Ceroba never heard of before. Could that even be considered fair?

“I ASK THAT YOU COOPERATE WITH ME.”

The Guarderer started moving its arms toward Clovers SOUL, which had become trapped in a battle box. The robot smashed down one arm on the right half of it, forcing Clover to move his SOUL left.

The other arm came down on the left side, but it stopped halfway before suddenly attacking from the bottom up so fast Ceroba hadn’t expected it.

Unfortunately, so had Clover, who had moved his SOUL into the lower left corner to avoid the first attack. He took a nasty hit, lowering his HP to 15.

It was now Clover's turn again, but all he could do was move his arm again, freeing it a little more. At the same time, Ceroba felt some of the bindings keeping her leg imprisoned wither away as well.

The Guardener did nothing but look down on the duo, its head occasionally twitching.

“ACCEPT YOUR OFFENCE, TRAMPLER.”

This time the arm came from the side, splitting the box in two. Clover easily dodged it, however.

What he had slightly more trouble with, though, were the four white plants suddenly growing out of the ground underneath the battle box, shooting out some sort of bullet into the box.

Clover manoeuvred his SOUL out of the way of one of the bullets just in time, causing Ceroba to let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

The kid had survived this turn unharmed, but he was still stuck to tugging at the vines holding him in place. 

He pulled up the shoulder of his almost freed right arm, but the vines doggedly stayed in place. 

He started pulling more, groaning audibly from the strain he was putting on his shoulder.

He kept pulling his shoulder up, and for a second Ceroba feared that his turn would end before any progress was made, until…

With a loud *SNAP* the vines gave way, allowing Clover to finally move his right arm freely. He rolled his right shoulder a couple times to massage the soreness it was surely experiencing right now.

As he did so, however, the turn went back to their malfunctioning adversary.

“YOU MUST LEARN THAT PLANTLIFE IS MORE IMPORTANT.”

The way the robot said that made Ceroba suspect that some sort of punchline was sure to follow, although she hoped it wouldn’t be a literal punch.

“MORE IMPORTANT_THA;N    YOU.  /”

Bingo. Whoever had designed this monstrosity had apparently forgotten the right order in which to install priorities.

At this rate destroying this particular robot might be inevitable.

Clover didn’t have time to think such thoughts. The Guardener had started attacking again.

Although how a single plant growing on the bottom of the box was supposed to do anything harmful was beyond Ceroba.

It was also beyond Clover, because he was taken completely off guard by the sudden appearance of a triple arm strike, bringing him down to 10HP.

How did that Guardener even perform a triple arm strike if it only had two?

Regardless, Clover was in control again, and he decided to start clawing at the vines keeping his satchel unusable. He only managed to remove the top layer, though.

“IF YOU DO NOT YIELD, I WILL CALL FOR BACKUP.”

Ceroba’s ears stood up straight from surprise. There were more Guardeners?!

That thought was a problem for another time though, because Clover was now fully concentrated on dodging bullets being shot from a rotating gun turret of sorts.

He had a couple of close calls again, and Ceroba’s eyes refused to blink for the entire duration of the attack sequence.

Clover could only tank one more hit, after all. The one after that would be fatal.

Luckily, he managed to avoid getting hit by any of the bullets, and on his turn he almost got his satchel free, if not for some particularly stubborn vines. It also caused the vines holding Ceroba’s other leg in place to almost entirely disappear.

“YOU ARE A HANDFUL. I AM GOING TO COUNT TO 3.”

The same gun turret descended again, except this time it moved to the middle of the box instead of a corner.

Was this going to be the same attack, just from a different angle? How repetitive and easy…

Was what Ceroba thought until a laserbeam suddenly hit the corner of the box closest to her, allowing her to feel its heat, which was noticeable even despite being inside the already hot Steamworks.

The lasers started moving, forming a continuous, rotative barrier within the box, slicing it into a pattern of triangle shaped safezones that never stayed in one place.

Thankfully, Clover had gotten his SOUL inside such a safezone before the lasers activated, and was now handily keeping up with the moving lasers.

Until they suddenly changed direction, causing Clover’s health bar to now show more red than yellow.

The white shackles Ceroba found herself trapped in suddenly couldn’t stop her from turning her paws into fists, just as her breath got a little shaky watching this disaster play out.

To her utter relief the lasers didn’t change direction again, instead phasing out, ending the Guardeners attack.

Clover wasted no time clawing away the last remaining vines around his satchel, coincidentally releasing Ceroba’s legs completely.

Unfortunately the vines keeping her arms in place were so strong that having her legs freed had little effect on how much she could help Clover survive this next turn. And that genuinely scared her.

This turn could be it. If Clover got hit just once, he was done for and she would have to resort to carrying his SOUL around in the canister without being seen. A far more dangerous plan.

If she herself even survived this encounter, that was.

“1”

Again the gun turret descended, although it looked considerably more rusted then earlier.

Was it a different, older model?

That wouldn’t make much sen-.

Out of nowhere the Guardener smashed her arm into the turret, completely destroying it and sending pieces of debris flying everywhere.

That included the battle box.

The unpredictable pattern of the debris made Ceroba feel a very, very cold sweat, and a glance over at Clover showed that he too was starting to panic a little.

Another rusty turret fell into the box, and again it was smashed to bits. Part of a gear flew straight past Clover’s SOUL.

So close by, in fact, that Ceroba could see her fear-frozen face in the yellow light reflected from its surface.

A third broken machine flew into the battle box and got taken apart violently.

Clover was in utmost concentration now, but at the same time he was clearly shaking in his boots. But he persisted, sending his SOUL through the maze of cogs, springs and barrels without touching anything.

The Guardener sent two more waves of former-turrets-turned-scrap through the box, but the shock factor the first attack had was well worn off now, and the cowboy had managed to regain his composure by the time the last pieces flew past his SOUL.

Ceroba felt her muscles collapse, tired out from the sudden decrease in adrenaline. If she hadn’t been held up by the vines she would have kissed the ground.

But that didn’t bother her in the slightest.

He had done it.

Clover had survived long enough to take back some semblance of control in this fight.

It wasn’t over, far from it, but they had their first victory. A small victory, but Ceroba chose to ignore that detail.

And the cowboy celebrated that victory by healing himself with the Gravity Granola.

With the kid back on full HP and with a couple of healing items left for if things go bad again, Ceroba felt sure that Clover could get them free in no time now.

“2… NOT BLUFFING.”

Her smile fell from her face as quickly as it had appeared. She’d forgotten about the threatened backup already.

Ceroba was dragged out of her thoughts by a bullet suddenly appearing before her, forcing her to flatten her left ear in order to avoid it.

The Guardener had not waited for the fox to finish overthinking her situation, and was already in the middle of attacking Clover again, this time with a full ring of bullet-shooting flowers.

At least the attack was predictable enough for Clover to avoid taking any hits, leaving him free to start breaking the vines preventing him from using his gun.

Sadly they proved just as tough as the rest, meaning it was going to take a few turns again, which in turn meant…

“3.”

It was time to see what trick the Guardener had kept up its sleeve.

“[CALLING BACKUP_]”

The backup arrived almost immediately, but when it did Ceroba had to blink her eyes a couple times. She frankly couldn’t believe what she was witnessing.

Instead of a second Guardener or another type of defence robot, two small machines that were about as tall as her legs came straddling into the battle.

This was the backup they had been threatened with?!

“you called for help, guardener?” The one on the left spoke up, with something about the robot’s voice making it sound extremely laid-back, uncaring almost.

“CORRECT. THIS TRAMPLER DOES NOT VALUE THE GREENHOUSE.”

The one on the right briefly turned to look at Ceroba and Clover before turning its attention back to the Guardener. “what is the offence level, miss?”

Oh, so this robot was apparently a she.

Not that such a minor detail mattered to Ceroba right now. All that mattered was making sure that this glitched out giant stopped being an issue.

And if Ceroba had been the one in control, she would’ve made sure that would also be the case for anyone else going after them. But much to her chagrin, it was always Clover whom these redundant robots targeted.

“10 - TERMINATION.”

The robot on the left looked surprised… as far as that was possible for something that didn’t have a face capable of showing emotions. “level 10!?” It stammered out. But the surprise didn’t last long, and it recomposed itself quickly. “i mean, of course!”

The one on the right looked back at the ‘tramplers’. “we are sorry, offender. Guardener says you deserve termination.”

“THEY KNOW. I JUST SAID THAT.” The Guardener stated. It sounded like a joke, but for this one Ceroba wasn’t so sure.

The greenhouse went silent, if only for one, blissful moment.

The leftmost robot just stared somewhere in between the Guardener and Clover. “sooo…”

“ATTACK.”

A small nod was its response. “right.”

So the new arrivals were going to prove a new problem after all. Not good.

If Clover didn’t free them as soon as possible, he would simply be overwhelmed in repeated three-way attacks.

She was getting restless again. “This is only getting worse!” She stammered out as she turned to look at the cowboy, hoping her panic wasn’t showing too much. “Don’t stop your efforts to free us!”

The two small robots moved, positioning themselves at either side of the battle box.

W-wait, where did they get that spear and gun from so quickly?!

Clover noticed the weapons as well, and started moving his SOUL up to avoid the line of sight of the robot holding the gun.

Unfortunately, the robot followed suit, as did the other robot, which was holding the spear and a shield.

The sound of gunfire rang out through the greenhouse, and because Clover was still distracted by the robots following his every up and down movement, the bullet struck true.

Back down to 15hp, Clover started moving his SOUL more frantically.

Thankfully, this seemed to have an effect, as the second bullet fired whizzed just over the top of his SOUL.

However, it then hit the shield held up by the other robot, breaking apart into pieces, which went flying through the battle box again, once again catching Clover off guard.

Despite the cowboy avoiding both the third bullet and its broken pieces, Ceroba’s right eye had started twitching.

Things had just started to look better again, but the appearance of these… gremlins had thrown them back to almost square zero.

Clover took out the Grassy Fries and slowly ate them. He tried to keep a neutral expression, but his slight disgust for them showed itself anyway. It did heal him back up though. Maybe whoever had taught Clover to eat literal grass was smarter then she had given them credit for earlier.

“_KEEP IT UP_<”

The Guardener was seemingly fine with taking a break whilst her lackeys kept up the pressure.

Ceroba was not so seemingly fine with the Guardener doing just that. It meant that only two opponents attacked instead of three.

For this attack the little annoyances had gotten buckets out of nowhere. They stood by the sides of the box again and started grabbing into the buckets, before throwing whatever they got their hands on into the battle box.

This included, amongst other things, bricks, knives and… battle-axes…

Ceroba decided this was the moment to stop questioning the randomness that this battle was throwing at them, both in the figurative and the literal sense.

Despite the incredibly random nature of this latest attack Clover survived unscathed. This meant that he had time to get rid of more vines surrounding his holster. Although it was still not enough, it seemed another turn would do it.

At the same time, Ceroba felt the grip on her left arm weakening as well.

The increase in movements that the pair were making finally seemed to have caught the attention of the Guardener. The robot quickly looked between the two and what was left of their shackles.

“PLEASE/ STAY IN YOUR_CONFINES !”

The Guardener started to sound a little panicked.

Good.

She was also acting more panicked as well, it seemed, for she used the same arm-into-bullet shooting flowers attack she used earlier. An easy dodge for Clover.

This left Clover free to undo the last of the vines keeping his gun locked away. And at exactly the moment that he snapped the last vine in half, Ceroba managed to pull her left arm out of the few vines weakly holding on to it.

“PLEASE/ STAY IN YOUR_CONFINES !”

The Guardener spoke the sentence in exactly the same fashion as she had done earlier.

Was she starting to break down further?

Very good.

Her aides did the next attack, and once again went with the buckets of random stuff.

Fortunately for Ceroba and Clover, re-used attacks make for predictable dodging patterns.

Finally Clover started freeing his mouth. By now Ceroba predicted that Clover removing some vines would also remove some vines holding her in place, and indeed some of the vines gripping her right arm -her staff arm- started letting go.

“PLEASE/ STAY IN YOUR_CONFINES !”

The repeated warning was followed by a repeated attack, the arm and bullet flowers once again proving completely futile at harming Clover.

If this was all the fight was going to be from now on Ceroba would almost consider it a won battle already.

Almost. 

She wasn’t going to let herself get complacent again like she had when Guardener’s backup had arrived.

Clover had used his turn getting rid of more vines around his mouth, and Ceroba could feel how loosely her right arm was held now.

One more turn and they would be free.

“PLEASE/ STAY IN YOUR_CONFINES !”

The Guardener had become utterly predictable by now, and her last chance at preventing the duo from getting free was wasted on repeating another attack Clover had no issues with whatsoever.

With a gasp for air Clover managed to remove the last vines keeping his mouth shut, and as expected Ceroba’s right arm broke free as well.

She wasted no time summoning her staff and taking a comfortable fighting position, even as the few remaining vines were yet to retreat back underground.

At her side, Clover also got into a stance better suited for battle. She turned to look at him and gave her companion a completely genuine smile.

A voice in the back of her head briefly spoke up to remind her she had never been wholly genuine to Clover before. 

She ignored it.

“Way to go! I’ll do what I can to help us escape for good!” She cheered the kid on, before turning her attention to the menace keeping them occupied.

The menace that was currently staring them down, completely motionless.

“CLEVERLY DONE. YOU HAVE GAINED MY RESPECT.”

Apparently the Guardener had finally snapped out of her endless cycle and noticed that the pair were free now.

“BUT YOU HAVE NOT GAINED MY MERCY.”

Ceroba wasn’t surprised by the robot's reaction, but it did pose a problem to her.

Was it actually even possible? Could they actually escape from the Guardener?

Or would they be forced to break this already half-broken behemoth?

“BOTS, _ATTACK.”

Ceroba quickly used her staff to summon a shield around Clover’s SOUL for the next attack.

It was all she could do to help the kid with this battle right now.

And so she dwelled back into her train of thought.

If Ceroba had called the shots right now, she wouldn’t have hesitated for a second. But she wasn’t in control.

Clover was, and his SOUL needed to stay pure at all costs.

Still, would self-defence, if no other options were available, really stain a SOUL that much?

It was all Ceroba could hope for.

Because if it didn’t, Kanako was doomed.

Clover, meanwhile, was hard at work avoiding the next pattern of attacks. And this time, it was a triple effort.

The Guardener had used her hands to split the battle box in two whilst her helpers were shooting projectiles towards the SOUL currently stuck in the lower right corner. The right bot was still using his pistol, which Ceroba now saw as being of an incredibly outdated design, but the left bot had conjured up a bow and arrow out of-

No, she had promised to stop thinking about the randomness.

A loud shattering noise alarmed Ceroba to the fact that the shield she had conjured broke, meaning Clover had gotten hit. But, the shield had done its job, and Clover was still on full HP.

And luckily the hit had happened at the tail end of the attack, so Clover survived the rest of it without any further trouble.

The small bots returned to Guardeners side, who briefly looked at the both of them.

“ADEQUATE JOB. THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP.”

The one on the left gave a brief salute. “no problem, guardener.”

Its friend on the other side nodded in agreement. “yeah, give us a call anytime. even just to hang out or smth.”

That reply seemed to catch the Guardener off guard, and for a brief moment, the greenhouse was silent once more.

“or not, it's nbd.”

The small bots didn’t wait for any response from the larger machine and scurried away into some dark corner of the room where Ceroba quickly lost track of them.

That the Guardener had wanted to say something back to them was obvious however, since she started slamming her arms into the ground out of frustration.

The fox glanced back over to the cowboy. It had been his turn since the moment the Guardener dismissed her backup, but Clover wasn’t doing anything.

Ceroba was about to remind the kid that he had to do something right now, when he started moving his arms.

Ever so slowly his arms went higher and higher, until they stood taller than his head, with fingers outstretched.

The pose kind of reminded Ceroba of how the bad guys in Starlo’s Western movies usually surrendered…

Wait, surrender?

She was about to yell at Clover about how stupid giving up now would be, when a gleam in his right eye caught her attention.

Was he… blinking at her?

Ceroba had no clue what the kid was getting at here, but given that she couldn’t do much beyond make her opinions known, she just watched as Clover turned his attention back to the Guardener.

“We apologise for our offence, miss. We never meant any harm.” Clover’s tone was soft and calm. It sounded like the kid was pleading for his life, but something about the way he said it made Ceroba doubt he was actually that desperate.

The Guardener tilted her head to one side for a moment, as if she hadn’t expected Clover to actually apologise for trampling the flowers.

However, it didn’t last long, and the robot quickly returned to its usual, emotionless stare.

“JUST YOU AND I AGAIN. IT IS TOO BAD I CANNOT GROW TIRED.”

That sounded like another poor attempt at setting up a joke.

“FOR YOU, THAT IS.”

Whoever had built Guardener clearly had an… interesting sense of humour.

The robot once again re-used an earlier attack, finally bringing back the operational gun-turret to perform the rotating bullet pattern again.

Seeing how easy Clover was evading all bullets made Ceroba realise that, although there might be nothing humorous about this situation, there was still some clear irony.

The Guardener might never grow tired, but she appeared to be very capable of becoming repetitive. Which in the end basically meant the same thing.

When the attack finished Clover wasted no time and took his previous stance again, except this time he didn’t hold his arms up beside his head but rather close to his chest, hands facing towards Guardener in the way people often use to ask another to calm down.

“Miss, please. Stop attacking us. We can talk this out without using violence.” The kid sounded far more sure of himself now. No doubt he had also spotted the brief moment of doubt that the Guardener had shown the turn before.

This time, too, it seemed as if something inside of Guardener hesitated at what to do next, but any chance of resolving the battle this turn disappeared when another small helper bot showed up.

This one looked even more diminutive then the previous two.

“i’m here for the attack!” It already started talking before it had even finished… waddling into the battle arena fully.

Ceroba didn’t like the copious amount of enthusiasm prevalent in that statement.

It also had the unfortunate effect of snapping Guardener out of her trance. “OH. YOU MISSED IT.”

The little bot looked only slightly bothered. “seriously? maaan.”

Why did Ceroba get the feeling this robot, which was the smallest machine the pair had encountered throughout the entire Steamworks, would be the one to enjoy harming them the most of everything here?

Despite the small bot's clear lack of sadness the Guardener seemed to take pity on it anyway.

“HEY, IT’S OK.”

The temporarily gentle giant pointed just left of what Ceroba was suspecting more and more of being just a little gremlin disguised as a robot.

“HERE, A FLOWER TO CHEER YOU UP.”

As she said that, a flower, completely similar to all other flowers in the greenhouse, suddenly sprouted out of the ground right where she was looking.

It actually dwarfed the tiny robot-that-was-likely-a-psychopath, which seemed to like the sudden gift.

“yoo thanks”

It wasn’t amazed by the flower long, however, and the enthusiasm that had given Ceroba bad vibes from the moment the miniscule mistake of engineering entered the scene returned to its face, which somehow had the most smug expression she had ever witnessed despite it being incapable of showing emotions.

“mind if I attack a little?”

The downright GLEE which with that… that… thing dared to speak out such a question.

It made the fox so angry that she didn’t even notice Clover looking at her with concern in his eyes at her sudden snarling.

When did she even start snarling?

It didn’t matter.

All that mattered was getting her claws on what was quickly looking like a perfect chew toy.

Ceroba just hoped that the Guardener was also seeing this clear admission of sadism and would therefore not go along with-

“BY ALL MEANS.”

…

She hated this place. She hated these robots. She hated EVERYTHING.

Clover was unfortunately unable to notice the ticking time bomb that was his companion, for the tiny terror had conjured up a rather modern looking gun almost the size of its own head. And it was clear that it had experience using it too. Its aim was shockingly accurate, which meant it was only a matter of time before a bullet struck true.

The sudden cry of pain coming from the kid snapped Ceroba out of her seething rage. She had been so busy imagining herself tearing the Steamworks apart that she had lost focus on the battle. She quietly cursed herself for that, as it meant Clover had to endure this attack without her magic shields.

And that meant the cowboy was back at 15HP.

Ceroba returned her attention to the still ongoing attack, briefly crossing eyes with the freak of science still happily shooting its gun at Clover’s SOUL, and for a moment she swore she could see its unmovable, bolted stuck mouthpieces curl up ever so slightly.

She didn’t get any time to process the image however, as the attack ended and the hellspawn waddled back into the deep dark corner from where it had been summoned.

Her ears seemed to pick up a faint, gleeful laughter coming from that corner not seconds later.

She tried sending a barrage of fireballs and bellbombs in that direction, but the rules of battle didn’t allow her to do so, resulting in nothing but Clover being weirded out by the fox throwing her staff this way and that whilst snarling at a corner of the room he couldn’t see anything standing in.

Instead, the cowboy returned to making sure this battle would stop. The previous two turns had clearly shown him that Guardener could potentially be reasoned with, so all he had to do was figure out how to keep her docile long enough to talk it out.

Taking his ‘calm down’ pose from the last turn again, he decided to try a different approach this time. “Please believe me when I say this is all a misunderstanding Miss. This is my first time in the Steamworks, so I wasn’t quite aware of the rules.”

As before, it seemed the Guardener wasn’t quite sure what to do with apologetic statements, and for almost an entire minute she did nothing but stare at Clover while her eyes flickered between their usual bright red and the dark grey that glazed over them whenever the ancient machine experienced a glitch.

But just like the previous times, she eventually retook her battle position, and started her turn.

“JUST WAIT UNTIL MY CREATOR HEARS ABOUT THIS.”

Upon hearing the word creator Ceroba finally snapped out of her desire and futile attempt to obliterate the corner that the tiny robot had scurried away to, and focussed on the robot still fighting them again.

She hadn’t stood still by the fact that robots don’t build themselves.

Guardener was designed by someone who worked here.

Could… could she be one of…

Chujin’s?

“YOU WILL GET A LONG LECTURE. A LECTURE MORE PAINFUL THAN ANYTHING I AM DOING. TRUE TORTURE.”

The fox looked down to the floor. She couldn’t look at the Guardener anymore.

After all, if there was anything Kanako loved to complain about, it was her fathers… Chujin’s long lectures.

Any desires she had felt about destroying the robot in front of her evaporated in an instant.

They would have to end this battle peacefully.

They just had to.

Unfortunately, the Guardener did not think about it the same way, and was once again attacking Clover.  However, it was yet again a re-used attack. The false flower growing at the bottom of the battle box gave away what was to come next, and Clover easily dodged the three-wave arm attack.

The cowboy once again made himself look as unthreatening as possible, although he had stopped doing the ‘calm down’ gesture, and was instead holding onto the brim of his hat.

The pose reminded Ceroba of whenever Starlo was about to question the ‘villain’ about what they were doing.

“Miss, is this really how you want to solve this?” Clover’s gaze turned up until he looked the robot straight in the eyes, a small, but determined, smile on his face. “‘Cause I think it ain’t. I think you’d also rather just talk this out. Am I right?”

Ceroba had to do a double take. Clover’s entire demeanour had changed this turn. He wasn’t pleading anymore, and he certainly didn’t seem to try and be apologetic now. All she could see in the cowboy was a pure, unbridled confidence, focussed entirely on the Guardener.

Had he noticed something she hadn’t?

Had he… found a way to end this godforsaken battle?

The fox quickly turned her sights to the half-broken mess of steam and steel that had been giving her a headache for the past hour or so.

At first glance the machine looked completely indifferent to Clover’s question, silently staring as she had been doing the entire time so far. But… it lasted far longer than any other time the robot had just stood inactive.

Was the Guardener… hesitating?

The robot stood there doing nothing but stare ahead of herself, but since it was her turn neither Clover or Ceroba could do anything other than count the passing seconds.

It took five minutes before the Guardener moved again, but it wasn’t of her own choosing.

Electric sparks flying everywhere from the back of her neck indicated that another glitch happened, and unfortunately it seemed to once more knock the robot out of her thoughts and back into the fight.

“AFTER THAT, THE HEAD OFFICE WILL GIVE YOU AN AWARD”

To Ceroba’s dismay it appeared that the glitch had hit the Guardener’s memory, for the robot was talking as if it hadn’t just contemplated its course of action.

At least, that is what Ceroba hoped that the Guardener was doing.

“EXCELLENCE IN RUINING GUARDENER’S DAY”

That was the worst fake award Ceroba had ever heard.

Then again, they seemed to have had awards for a lot of things here. She clearly remembered the row of different engineering awards and their odd phrasing.

Still, that didn’t mean everything would have an award attached to it, right?

Right?!

“DESERVED.”

Ceroba rolled her eyes. As much as she disagreed with that statement, this battle had gone in such a way she knew it would be futile to argue against it.

At least the Guardener's predictability had also remained mostly consistent throughout this entire ordeal, for she used the same attack as last turn. Clover had gotten so used to this attack that at the first sight of the flower growing at the bottom he parked his SOUL right next to it.

The only thing the three-wave arm attack managed to accomplish was hit the SOUL with a gust of harmless wind.

Ceroba instantly turned to look at Clover. He had truly surprised her with how he acted last turn, and the fox was now highly interested in how he would follow it up.

The cowboy stood still for a moment, clearly deep in thought, before his eyes suddenly flashed open and a smile returned to his face.

Clover started rubbing his chin with his left hand whilst pointing his gaze slightly left of Guardener. “Y’know, while I do get that you want to enact justice for our offence Miss, and once again, I apologise for the trampling,-” He made a show of quickly tilting his head and shrugging before settling back into what Ceroba could only describe as Clover’s reasoning stance “-there is just one thing I don’t get. Just before you engaged us in battle you told me that my punishment would be lessened because of my age. However,-” His left hand stopped rubbing his chin and instead went to hold onto the brim of his head, lowering it just enough for his eyes to become obscured “-Seeing as my punishment is currently ‘termination’, which is the highest form of punishment possible, I fail to see how my punishment could get any worse. Therefore, Miss Guardener,-” Suddenly Clover raised his hat again letting his eyes cast their powerful gaze on the Guardener, sparkling as they are with determination and confidence, whilst at the same time pointing his right hand straight at the machine’s face in one, powerful motion “-you have not, in fact, lowered my punishment at all!” 

“WAIT-”

An absolutely giant smile formed on Clover’s face, stretching almost from cheek to cheek “Not only does that mean you lied to me, it also means you have not been acting justly at all. As such, I demand that you lower my punishment as promised!”

The greenhouse fell silent. Not a thing could be heard and neither did anything make a move.

For Clover this was because he stayed in his pose, right hand still firmly pointing at the Guardener.

For the Guardener Ceroba couldn’t tell.

As for herself?

She was simply too dumbfounded about the sheer verbal beating Clover had just dished out, her brain desperately playing catchup with everything the cowboy had just said and done, but failing harder at comprehending it the more she tried to think about it all.

For a couple of moments that felt like aeons one could walk into the greenhouse and assume to be looking at a trio of sculptures that made up a piece of art.

But eventually such moments always come to an end.

And this one ended because the sculpture that looked like a broken down robot suddenly started speaking again.

“YOU- YOU / I. ..”

Hearing the confusion in the robot's voice finally managed to make Ceroba also snap out of her trance and turn her attention to the machine that had given them so much trouble, but now seemed to be troubled by itself.

[>/OFFENSE LEVEL LOWERED_] A different female voice proclaimed from somewhere around Guardeners head. Its tone reminded Ceroba of the almost mechanical voices that human phones or fax machines were usually equipped with.

The Guardener was clearly too occupied with some internal thoughts to cause any issues right now. So, Ceroba finally allowed herself a moment to rest as silence fell over the greenhouse again.

This entire battle had been… hectic, and quite frankly, all of these unexpected encounters in here were starting to seriously exhaust her. In her current state she would never successfully complete her plan.

She’d need a break soon.

“OH.”

All too soon the silence passed, as their metallic opponent seemed to have finished sorting out her thoughts.

“WHAT HAPPENED?”

The curious tone of that question made Ceroba raise her ears. Did the Guardener somehow not remember everything that just transpired?

“THERE  S_SEEMS TO BE A GAP IN MY MEMORY CORE.”

…

Ceroba made herself a mental note to stop asking questions that could have rhetorical answers.

“I AM SORRY.”

The Guardener did not seem keen on letting the fox dwell on trivialities, for Ceroba immediately forgot about all the little annoyances that had plagued her throughout this battle upon hearing those three words.

Even if their opponent was a robot, there was a clear sincerity in the way those words were spoken. And they told Ceroba exactly what she wanted to hear.

The fight was over. 

Clover had done it… somehow.

She turned to look at her companion, who had finally stopped holding the judgmental pose that had finished this madness.

Instead, Clover now had his shoulders slumped, his hands dangling freely by his sides, and his gaze seemed a little unfocussed.

The kid was tired, and Ceroba really couldn’t blame him.

But he had achieved a, quite honestly, remarkable feat here, managing to peacefully end a confrontation with a malfunctioning machine out for murder.

He had saved their lives and kept his SOUL pure in the process.

The fox found herself smiling at Clover, who was still looking off towards the distance, and for the second time in an hour her demeanor was completely honest towards the cowboy.

The voice in her head spoke up again, laughing at her about her apparent failure to not create a connection with the kid.

She ignored it again.

Instead, Ceroba decided that Clover deserved to know what she felt about what he had just done. And judging by the fact that he was still phasing out, a little reminder that he had actually finished the fight might also be necessary.

She put her left paw on Clover’s right shoulder. “I think that did the trick!” She made sure her voice wasn’t too loud. Didn’t want to startle the kid after all… or the Guardener. “You’re pretty clever in intense situations.”

He really was, wasn’t he?

She hadn’t given it much thought until now, but Clover had been an amazing companion all throughout the Steamworks, showing his cleverness, and stubbornness, time and time again.

This battle wasn’t the first time the cowboy had saved them, or kept his SOUL pure. It had just put her in a powerless position that forced her to finally confront the truth.

The truth that Clover had become more than just a pawn in her schemes. 

More than a means to an end.

More than… just a SOUL she could use to revive her own daughter.

Her left paw fell limp by her side.

She had been confronted by the truth… 

but was she also ready to accept it?

Her mind screamed at her to not do that. To stick to the plan.

The voice in her head was telling her it told her so.

And her heart… 

Her SOUL… 

They…

…

She put her left paw back on Clover’s right shoulder, more firmly this time.

She swallowed once, closed her eyes, and gave a weak smile.

The plan would just need to adapt.

“I’m… Impressed.”

She felt something pressing on top of her paw, and opening her eyes she saw Clover looking at her, a warm smile on his face. The something pressing on her paw was his left hand, gently holding hers as it rested on Clover’s shoulder.

She wanted to hate it, but she couldn’t.

Clover turned his attention to the silently waiting Guardener again.

It was time to end this.

The black and white world that indicated a battle was happening briefly flashed yellow, then turned two-tone again, before finally the greenhouse regained its usual palette of colours, how solemn they might be.

With the battle officially over, the Guardener seemed ready to move again.

“I WAS ABOUT TO DO SOMETHING…”

Ah, the robot’s memory issues were acting up.

In all honesty, a part of Ceroba felt nothing but pity for the Guardener. The robot had clearly been dealt an abysmal hand at existence, if doing nothing but care for plants based on repetitive protocols could even be described as such.

“OH YES, I REMEMBER. SENDING LEVEL 3 REPORT_”

Oh, so Clover was still in offence… That was regrettable, but not very. Something told Ceroba that the Guardener wouldn’t experience such a major malfunction again, somehow.

[RESPONSE - NEGATIVE] The fax machine-esque voice announced.

The fox shook her head. Of course there wouldn’t be a reply from the other side. This place had been crumbling for nearly a decade, and the only inhabitants still ‘working’ were machines. There would be no one at headquarters to respond to the Guardeners requests.

“I APOLOGISE. ALLOW ME TO CALL AGAIN.”

Ceroba had to frown. The Guardener had been in some sort of hibernation prior to the pair disturbing her sleep. Based on how long the machine had slept, it would be nothing but logical that she wouldn’t know about the Steamworks closing down.

“SENDING LEVEL 3 REPORT_” The Guardener seemed to hesitate for a second before adding something extra this time. “HELLO? CREATOR? ARE YOU THERE?”

Yet again no reply came. The part of Ceroba that was pitying the Guardener seemed to swell, and something about the entire scene playing out in front of her started to make her heart ache. Judging by Axis showing a degree of emotional capability, could Guardener also be able to feel emotions?

“I BELIEVE MY CREATOR MIGHT BE PLAYING A ‘PRACTICAL JOKE’ ON ME.”

Could a robot feel… uncomfortable?

“SIGNALLING STEAMWORKS HEAD OFFICE_”

Could a robot feel… sadness?

[BEEEEP - THE LINE YOU ARE CONTACTING HAS BEEN DISCONNECTED]

Could a robot feel… fear?

“WHERE… WHERE IS EVERYBODY?”

Could a robot feel… abandonment?

The Guardener slowly turned her head this way and that, taking in the dilapidated state of the greenhouse.

Could a robot feel… alone?

“OH… I HAVE ALLOWED IMMENSE OVERGROWTH.”

Could a robot feel… shame?

“I UNDERSTAND.”

Could a robot feel… worthless?

“IT SEEMS… MY DAY HAS PASSED.”

Could a robot feel… rejected?

The Guardener fell silent once again.

Could a robot feel… pessimistic?

“...CANCEL REPORT AND REINITIATE HIBERNATION_”

Could a robot feel… despair?

[HIBERNATION SEQUENCE ENGAGED]

Could a robot feel… guilt?

“I AM SORRY FOR INCONVENIENCING YOU. I DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE WORLD IS LIKE NOW, NOR D-DO I WISH TO. //”

Could a robot…

The Guardener moved her arms back into the hibernation pod, and gave the duo one last look.

“LIFE WAS. .. M-MUCH BETT>ER… _NOT ;KNOWING… .”

Be depressed?

…

Ceroba didn’t need an answer as she silently watched the Guardener retreat back into the safety of eternal slumber.

Slowly she removed her paw from between Clover’s hand and shoulder, taking one, slow, uncomfortable step forward. “Let’s… keep moving.”

The pair didn’t speak another word as they made their way towards the greenhouse exit, although both took care not to disturb the flower resting on top of the lid that shielded the Guardener from the rest of the world.

Ceroba hoped she would never have to pass through here again.

Back outside the greenhouse they found themselves on yet another long, and high, catwalk. Reaching the first corner Clover slowed down to stop and rest in the corner of a small platform attached to their path, and Ceroba couldn’t deny her legs, and especially her mind, the same respite.

She glanced back over at the greenhouse. From this side nothing gave away the explosion of flora inside. Nothing even hinted at this particular building being radically different from the rest. It was its own tiny world, flourishing where everything around it was decaying.

Although the decay had clearly also rooted itself inside that world.

Ceroba couldn’t bear to look back at the greenhouse any longer, and so she let her eyes wander around, taking in the broken machinery and leaky pipes she had become so familiar with now. She had been very annoyed by all of it when they had first entered here, but now they made her feel a comfortable familiarity.

Finally her eyes landed on Clover.

The kid was exhausted, massaging his legs to beat the soreness he was undoubtedly feeling there. But when he noticed her looking at him, he gave her a smile.

She smiled back, although whether genuine or an act, she couldn’t tell.

Not anymore.

The greenhouse had shattered the walls she had built around herself regarding the obvious implications her plan had come with.

And now, everytime she looked at Clover, that voice in her head laughed at her. Taunted her. Talked her down.

And she couldn’t necessarily disagree with it either.

For whereas every encounter prior to the white hell they had just escaped from had bolstered her belief that Clover was the perfect choice for Kanako, the fight with the Guardener hadn’t increased that spirit.

Instead, every time she looked at Clover now, there was an ache in her SOUL.

Ceroba slowly opened her eyes. Her fur was slightly on edge, and her arms were trembling a little. She’d unconsciously stopped sliding the ramune, as it was now clenched firmly in her right paw. And to her dismay, the headache had also gotten worse again. But she could deal with that later.

There were more pressing matters right now.

She looked up at her guest, who had apparently resorted to balancing some sort of magical orb over his fingers to pass the time. The orb shined a brilliant gold, showering the entire kitchen in the same light that the swelterstone gave off, just with a slightly darker tone.

Al’s bottle of ramune had also gotten significantly emptier, having only about a fifth of its contents left by now.

Right then her headache decided to remind her that it was still doing its level best to ruin her day by sending a pounding thump through her head. So she brought her ramune to her snout and took one big gulp, leaving her bottle even emptier than Al’s.

When she put the bottle back on the table her guest had stopped playing with the golden orb, holding it between two fingers instead, and he was looking right at her.

His face appeared to be as emotionless as ever, but Ceroba could swear that she saw a glint of concern in his eyes.

Even though those eyes were made up of pitch black irises surrounded by the same dull yellow that made up his skin.

“So, did you find some answers?” Al’s voice was noticeably softer than before, the dominant undertones Ceroba had come to expect missing completely. Maybe there was hope for his social skills yet.

At this point Ceroba couldn’t suppress the sigh that had been stuck in the back of her throat any longer. Thinking about her mistakes was never easy, but sometimes it just had to be done, as exhausting as it was. “Yeah, I think I found what I was looking for.”

For a second Ceroba thought she could see the hints of a smile on Al’s face as he responded. “That’s great!” But maybe she just imagined it, as his face quickly turned to stone again. “Although…” He continued, a bit hushed. “If you need some time before continuing, I’d understand.” That got a raised eyebrow from Ceroba, so Al explained further. “You spent quite some time thinking, and it seemed to be rather emotionally taxing on you.”

Ceroba’s raised eyebrow raised a little further. Sure, it was true that she was feeling pretty tired now, but…

“How did you…?” She started asking, before she remembered something. “You didn’t read my mind again, did you?” She barked out accusingly. “I thought you promised you wouldn’t do that again!”

Al seemed genuinely surprised by this sudden outburst. “I didn’t do that.” He defended himself. “I made a promise, and I always keep my promises. I just…” He paused, mulling over something. Ceroba was starting to calm down again, but she wasn’t quite satisfied yet with his answer. Then, with a deep sigh, Al continued. “It was an assumption, a guess. Based on the fact it took you so long and on, uhh…” There was an uncomfortable pause. “W-Well, you know how emotions can be read off of… Can have an effect on the…” His voice was getting meeker. “On the body?” He finished awkwardly, turning his head away. “Well, that, basically.”

Ceroba just sat there wide eyed. There was no way someone was this unsubtle on purpose. Even her headache stopped its pestering as if it too had to ponder what she just heard. Under normal circumstances she’d get angry and call someone out for such behaviour. But she was simply too tired, and so the only thing that she could do was look her guest straight in the eyes, and sternly say “You are really bad at this, aren’t you?”

Al dropped any semblance of control over the situation he still had. His face became somber, and he averted her gaze. “Yeah, I am…”

It stayed silent for over a minute. But eventually Al looked back up again, uncertainty still painting his face, but there was a hint of something else now, too. “Look, I…” He spoke slowly. “I know I am not the best when it comes to being… normal. Or with basic social behaviour.” The way he spoke made it clear this wasn’t easy for him, but whether that was to her or to himself Ceroba couldn’t tell. “But I really, truly, want to help you. All of you. Well… if you’d all let me help, that is.” His tone shifted into a more serious tone. “I am serious about this, and I promise you that I’m not doing this to get something out of it. I know that I haven’t made a great impression so far, but all I ask is a chance to prove myself.” There was an almost unnoticeable shift in his face. But Ceroba had become an expert in reading people, so she did notice the hint of desperation that crept in as he finished his plea. “So please, let me help you.”

That was a lot to take in. As far as she could tell he was either an amazing actor or completely sincere. But she was inclined to believe the latter at this point. Al seemed to be a character of many mysteries, and his lack of social skills were becoming a second headache on their own as this meeting progressed, but something about the way he said those last words, well…

She considered herself to be quite a good actor for… obvious reasons, but if she had had the ability to be that subtle with her emotions she might’ve actually been able to convince Starlo of her false sincerity even after he had found the lab.

No, it was more likely that he seemed to want to help her as much as she wanted help, even if that idea brought up questions of its own.

And at the end of the line, she really wanted to start getting her life back in order.

Ceroba looked Al over once more. His shoulders were still slumped, and his hands were holding each other tightly at this point. He also still carried that weak smile on his face. He was clearly waiting for her answer.

She couldn’t help but start smiling herself, and it took Al less then a second to notice for he suddenly looked far more hopeful.

It reminded Ceroba a little of whenever she teased Kanako by telling her daughter no before saying yes.

Putting that image out of her mind, she finally addressed the still waiting Al. “I will accept your help.” Anticipating a response, she quickly put up a finger to make sure Al stayed silent. “But, I do have some conditions.”

Her finger wasn’t even fully down yet before Al spoke with a little excitement. “Of course! Just name it!”

Ceroba lifted up her paws to count off her demands with her fingers, starting with one, which was the most obvious point. “Firstly, you are really going to need to improve your social skills. I’ll forgive you for today, but if it keeps happening it’s going to get very old, very fast.”

Al gave a firm nod, looking at her with complete understanding. “Of course. I can’t promise it’ll get better instantly, but I’ll do my very best to prevent more awkwardness.” A smile returned to his face. “But since I’ll have to learn that on the fly during my time here, I, heh, hope you don’t mind helping me with that, perhaps?”

Ceroba briefly raised an eyebrow before returning the smile and shaking her head a little. “That speaks for itself, of course. I’d be happy to help you with that.”

No time to linger, though, so she let her smile fall as she raised a second finger. “Second, I do not yet know how you plan on helping me, but I want some say in how we go about this, understood?”

Al nodded vigorously again. “Absolutely! It was actually already my intent to give you space in how we do this. I want to help you, not command you.”

That was an… odd comparison, but anyways, time to move to the big one.

Ceroba lifted up a third finger, and for a brief second her attention was drawn to the shiny silver ring still adorning it. It made her have to force down a sudden clump in the back of her throat.

She'd still find a way to honour his legacy. She had to.

Shaking her head to refocus on the present, she spoke up again. “And lastly, before I fully agree to this-” She tried her best to copy the way Al spoke whenever he didn’t tolerate any objections “-You’re going to tell me more about yourself. What you do, how you came here, and why you’re doing this.”

No nod came this time. Instead, Al quickly returned to his usual stoic self. Ceroba couldn’t tell whether or not he was angry, shocked or feeling something else about this request.

Finally he let out a sigh, holding up his shoulders as he did so. “That was to be expected.” He gave her a look that could have come straight out of Starlo’s westerns, sharing plenty of similarities with the reaction some villains had when they were found out. “Quite honestly, I didn’t anticipate you asking so quickly, but fair where fair’s due. However…” His tone turned deadly serious. “I will not tell you everything. There are some things that I’m… not willing to disclose at this moment. That doesn’t mean I won’t tell you anything, of course, but about what I do want to share, well…” Al leaned in closer, resting his chin on his right hand. Then, out of nowhere, his face turned into the biggest smile she had seen from him yet. “I think that it’s time for lunch first! Stories are usually enjoyed far more when accompanied by some good food anyway.”

Ceroba was about to argue against him when, as if on some comedic cue, her own stomach betrayed her, letting her know quite audibly it was finished with her meagre breakfast.

All the fox could do in response was sigh. Her stomach had clearly won Al this argument.

She shook her head and stood up from her chair, giving herself a moment to stretch her slightly sleepy legs. “Lunch it is, I guess.”

Turning around, she pushed her chair back under the little table before making her way to the fridge. A single look inside revealed there was really only one choice for what to make. She started grabbing the necessary ingredients whilst asking Al a question that might as well be rhetorical. “Would you mind corn chowder?”

From behind her her guest responded with a little curiosity in his voice. “Corn chowder? I’ve never had that before.” Al fell silent for a moment as Ceroba continued gathering the ingredients she needed, but quickly came to a conclusion. “Sure, I’ll have some.”

The kitchen was mostly silent, apart from the occasional clinking of spoons against the stone bowls that had only minutes ago been completely filled with chowder, but were now already almost half-empty.

It had taken her quite some time to make the dish, as Ceroba always took great care to follow the recipe she had learned from her grandmother, but the result was always worth the patience. Normal corn chowder usually has the same yellow colour as its namesake, but the family recipe resulted in a more orange tint. This was thanks to the added spices and eastern styled flavours that dominated their cuisine. It caused the corn chowder to not only change colour, but also added a little bite to it that caused a delightful explosion of sweet and spicy with each mouthful.

Al had already commented on the smell before she had even finished cooking, and now he was basically scarfing down the chowder. One glance at his bowl told Ceroba that he could probably finish two of them in the time it took her to finish one. “I’ll admit, this is simply amazing Ceroba.” He commented in between two bites, a hint of pure delight in his voice.

“My pleasure.” The fox answered, before taking another spoonful herself. When she finished it, she looked up at her guest. “Would you mind telling me about yourself now?” Grabbing another spoon of delicious chowder, she finished her sentence before putting it in her mouth. “I must admit that you’ve made me quite curious.”

Al raised an eyebrow at her before putting his spoon in his not-quite-but-almost-finished bowl. “Very well, I can understand the curiosity.” He said as an almost imperceptible smile crept onto his face. “But where to start?” Out of nowhere he conjured up a napkin and started wiping his mouth, before sitting up a little straighter.

“Well, I specifically asked for the who, what and why.” Ceroba commented. By now she had also stopped eating, although her bowl was still half-full. Her curiosity had simply taken the better of her.

The napkin disappeared into nothing again. “Then let’s start, why don’t we?” 

Al extended his right arm over at Ceroba. The fox was slightly surprised by the sudden action, and hesitated just long enough for Al to shake his hand a little. Finally getting the cue Ceroba grabbed the hand with her paw.

“Greetings, I am Al.” Al said, with that same tiny smile she had seen before. “I’m… a traveller of sorts. Although others have also said I’m like the police… or the army… or some sort of guard.” There was plenty of enthusiasm present in Al’s voice, with some clear pride sprinkled throughout. It sounded a little like how Chujin used to like to talk about his work at the Steamworks. “Well, I guess it can best be described a little differently. You see, there are a lot of other universes besides this one. And when I say a lot, I truly mean A lot . Capital A.”

By now the handshake was starting to feel a little clammy, so Ceroba gently removed her paw from Al’s hand. He didn’t seem to mind, retracting his own arm to his side without pausing his story. “And… I kind of made it my job to ensure that those universes can coexist nicely with each other. Wait, no… that’s not entirely correct” He paused momentarily before snapping a finger. “Let’s put it this way. Each universe is its own… well, universe. And each universe has its own rules and regulations. These work fine on themselves, but if something from another universe enters, those rules, regulations, powers…” Al wildly waved his hands. “Whatever. Point is that when that happens, the invaded universe might experience what can best be described as some sort of destabilisation. And that, that's very bad. Catastrophic even, sometimes.”

Ceroba had some difficulty following. Al spoke softly and slowly, and therefore every word could clearly be understood. But the picture he was painting was pretty complicated. And much to her dismay, trying to follow it was making the headache return again. Al probably noticed, for he briefly paused his story, before continuing on in a less enthusiastic manner. “Bottom line, I make sure that universes are left to their own as much as possible, and if they are intruded on with bad consequences as a result, I do my best to make the invader leave and restabilise the universe if necessary.” He took a bite of his chowder to allow Ceroba some time to process this latest information. “It’s… far more complicated than that, actually, but I’ll spare you the details. All you need to know is that that is what I do on a day to day basis. And by now, that’s been the case for just over-” Al rubbed his chin a little. “Three millennia.”

It took some time for Ceroba to take in everything, chewing everything over as she chewed on her chowder. That is, until she started pondering his final words. The paw carrying another spoon of chowder to her mouth stopped midway as she refocused on Al in complete shock. “Three… millennia?” She asked in disbelief. “Three. Millennia.” Even as she repeated the words to herself it still sounded insane. “You’ve been alive for 3.000 years?!”

Al started rubbing his wrists in an uneasy fashion as if something about it was also uncomfortable for him. “Well… yes. I have been around for over 3.000 years.” His face turned to the ground, almost as if he was ashamed of it. “And… my age, too, is too complicated to do justice with such a simple explanation.” A weak chuckle escaped his mouth. “I’ll spare you the details, but, heh, time isn’t as linear as is often assumed.”

Ceroba’s mind was still occupied with the near impossible age that she barely heard Al’s last comment. She knew that boss monsters could plausibly reach such an age if they never had children, but the oldest boss monster in recorded history was King Asgore, and even he had not reached four digits yet. Of course, Al wasn’t any kind of monster, a fact that only made it all that much more difficult to comprehend.

All of it was fueling her headache like it was the Steamworks’ furnace. At this rate she would need to visit the doctor in the Wild East for a remedy. But she wasn’t in the Wild East, and the Doctor couldn’t just teleport into her home, so she opted for a quicker solution: Changing the topic.

“That’s all very… interesting…” She started, a bit shakily. “But can you maybe just skip ahead and tell me why you’re here?” She rubbed her forehead to provide some counterpressure to the thumping inside her head. “This is getting a little too hard for me to follow anymore.”

Al looked back up, his face a mix of concern and something that told Ceroba he had seen this coming. His eyes briefly wandered higher, likely noticing the paw she still held to her forehead, before setting on nothing. “Yes, that would probably be for the better.”

A spoon of chowder disappeared into his mouth as he prepared his story. His movements were slow with a little uncertainty. Ceroba guessed he was probably focussed more on his thoughts. 

It didn’t last long, though. The spoon had barely been placed back in the bowl before he cleared his throat. “I’ll be honest, I did not plan on visiting this universe.” His focus shifted from the bowl back to her. “My presence here is entirely accidental.” He raised his right arm, resting its elbow on the table, and turned his hand so that the palm was pointed at the ceiling. “I was on what would normally be a routine mission, investigating a universe in which we had detected an odd fluctuation in the local magical structure.” A ball of magic appeared on top of Al’s right hand, quickly turning into a facsimile of earth. “I traced the fluctuations back to that universe’s earth, and it didn’t take me long to determine that they were caused by the presence of an outside invader.” The simulated earth started transforming into something else. “As it turned out, an entity that I can best describe as demonic had managed to worm its way into that universe, and had found itself a local host in the form of a human specialised in entertaining royalty, who had been exiled by his king for attempting murder.” 

As Al spoke, the transformation finished, showing a human, dressed in an odd costume of white and red, with bells attached to pointy shoes and on the two tips of a split hat. The human had a bright red X painted on his nose. A dark hue radiated off of him, and the human’s face showed an almost unnatural confidence. “Under the demon’s guidance, the Fool had first ravaged his old kingdom, leaving it desolate and the few survivors easy prey for the demon’s powers, before setting him against the entire world.” The image of the human shifted again, showing a castle that appeared to be roughly the same size as that of Asgore's burning, its inhabitants either dead, or laughing uncontrollably. “I intercepted that human when it was roughly halfway through destroying his world, and the ensuing battle began as they always did.” The castle made way for the next picture. In this one, two people were standing some ways apart, clearly ready to engage one another. The one on the left was the oddly dressed human from before, and the other was currently talking to Ceroba. 

“But… something went wrong.” Al’s tone made a dramatic shift. Whereas so far he told the story in a somewhat monotone, but clearly energetic way, he now sounded reserved and… a little confused. It caught Ceroba off guard, and for a moment her attention shifted from the images projected on Al’s hand to his face. What she saw was someone who was doubting his own story the more he told of it. 

Al didn’t give her much time to linger on his face, however, as the image on his hand shifted a little. “For… reasons I still haven’t figured out, I was overzealous, and my attack too powerful for my enemy.” The image started moving, some sort of attack rapidly building up in front of the projected Al before it blasted into the human. When the blast cleared, the human was gone. “Normally I… I make sure to check everything before I engage, so that I can be in complete control. But… I didn’t this time.” The small Al suddenly looked panicked, and a deep sigh escaped its present counterpart. “The price for that carelessness was… immense.”

The image shifted out to show the entire earth again, but something was wrong. The image started to contort, pulling the edges of the earth closer to its core. “Remember what I said about universes being at risk of destabilising when something from outside them gets inside?” Despite her now genuinely painful headache and the fact Al’s story had been less than simple, Ceroba instantly got the clue, and with bated breath watched the image of the earth as it contorted further into itself. It appeared to be going faster now. “In my inexplicable haste to deal with the problem, I completely overlooked one crucial fact about the situation. The demonic entity had already managed to intertwine itself with the magic of the universe, and as a defence mechanism, it had turned itself into a… detonator of sorts.” The image of the earth was now rapidly collapsing in on itself, and by now the stars around it were pulled towards the centre too. “When I killed the host, I also ended the demon, and that triggered the magic present in that universe to…”

The earth was now almost completely swallowed by itself, and the image shifted again, expanding until several galaxies were visible. They were all pulling towards the place the earth had been seconds earlier. Something about the sight was causing Ceroba’s fur to raise up. “to…”

Another, very deep sigh escaped Al, but Ceroba was completely mesmerised by the eerie sight of galaxy after galaxy disappearing into nothing. But her ears were on alert, and they did notice the sigh, turning their full attention to the source of the noise even as Ceroba herself was still focussed on the image in front of her.

“The magic structure of that universe collapsed, and that caused the entire universe…” Her ears followed Al’s solemn statement as her eyes saw that there were almost no galaxies left. “...to implode”.

The moment Al finished speaking the image in his hand swallowed up the final few galaxies, leaving only a dark nothing in their place. His hand fell to the table, making the magic hovering above it disappear and causing everything standing on the table to jump slightly when it fell down.

Ceroba couldn’t do anything but keep staring at where Al had projected his story. She didn’t notice Al retracting his hand from the table to rub his wrist again, nor that he was expecting her to make some sort of comment. All she could think about was what she had just seen. More specifically, she was thinking about the implications that came with it.

Universes contained life. Lots of life.

With no reactions from Ceroba, Al cleared his throat again. “I figured out what was happening just before I got caught in the implosion. So I panicked and just opened a portal to escape without specifying the location. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to escape quick enough to escape harm completely, and most of my powers got sapped in the process.” Al seemingly didn’t mind Ceroba’s lack of attention, and he entered the finale of his story as if he was talking to an attentive listener. “The portal happened to lead here, but I was too weakened to open another one to go back home. Meaning I am stuck here until my powers restore themselves.” Another silence, so after a while Al concluded. “And that is basically the story of why I’m here.” 

He probably hoped that that would’ve caused a reaction, but Ceroba just kept staring. After another minute, Al decided he had enough and lightly tapped on the table to startle the fox out of her trance. Soon enough her attention was on him again. “Does that answer your questions?”

Ceroba needed some more time to ground herself back in reality, announcing her full return to the land of the living with a heaving sigh. “Yes, thank you.” As she spoke she grabbed her head again, as without distractions her headache became a primary issue again. 

However, one thing kept nagging her. “I just have one more.” All she got in response was a raised eyebrow, but she took it as her cue to continue. “In that implosion, how many… died?”

Despite her headache making her desire to just close her eyes, she managed to keep her gaze on Al good enough to see the sombre look on his face. “Well, I don’t know exactly how much sentient life inhabited that universe, but…” His head fell down. “The smallest universe surveyed had…” Another lump was swallowed down. “Several… septillion alive creatures at any given time.”

At first Ceroba just sat there staring at Al, too distracted by her headache to fully understand his answer. But Chujin had been very good at mathematics, and she had paid enough attention to his algebraic ramblings to know how many zeros she had to count to get to a septillion. And so she started counting zeros in her head.

It started alright, and although the whole of the underground had less than a million monsters, she only started to comprehend the true scale of Al’s answer when she passed the trillion. When she had finally counted the final zero, her mind was very much detached from reality again. 

So many creatures, and they had all just… vanished. All while she was sitting wasted at Dina’s, completely unable to understand the horror going on in an entirely different realm of existence.

But then an even worse realisation hit her. That number, those septillions. That was a different universe. A… smaller universe. That number was the lowest estimate possible. There was no telling just how many had truly died in that implosion. But it was more than… several… septillion.

Her mind started ringing and she missed how Al was starting to talk to her with serious concern on his face. She was starting to lose her sense of being as she tried to make peace with the enormity of everything and the idea that she was almost meaningless in the grand scheme of it all. 

The sudden touch of a hand on her shoulder snapped her out of the trance. But she couldn’t get herself to calm down. Not here. She stood up abruptly, knocking over her chair and started rubbing her face with both her paws. As she did she heard the shuffling of another chair, which could only mean one thing. A thing she really didn’t need right now. So she started walking away from the table as she tried her best to shout as calmly as possible to the other person in the room. “I-I need some time alone.”

Ceroba had lived in the estate for so long that she could navigate its halls blind. That was a useful skill when trying to catch Kanako whenever the little fox tried to steal a midnight snack, but it proved just as helpful now that she kept her eyes close to allow her paws to rub her forehead in an attempt to battle the headache and the confusion that were also fighting between themselves for who would pester the fox more.

She realised soon enough that she had left the kitchen behind and was walking in a hallway. The lack of any movement besides her own told her that Al was respecting her wish, and in her mind she whispered a soft thanks. She knew she couldn’t blame him for causing this, he had merely done what she had asked of him, after all. If anything, she only had herself to blame for her current predicament. As usual.

The further she got from the kitchen, the less panicked her mind became, and as a result the ringing in her mind slowly subsided until it was gone. With the worst behind her, she grabbed the wall with her right paw for support as she took some deep breaths. As she did so she managed to think clearly enough to come to a welcome realisation. Most of what Al just told her was completely unrelated to her current issues. All that multiple universe stuff could just be something for later. A lot later, if it was up to her.

A few steady breaths later Ceroba finally found herself calm enough to stop holding her left paw to her forehead, letting it fall to her side. By now even the headache had returned to being nothing but a nuisance, finally giving the fox a moment to rest and look back on everything that had already happened on what was turning out to be a very difficult day. She opted to keep her eyes closed for now, enjoying the peace that came rather naturally with seeing nothing but a voluntary darkness.

In hindsight it was clear both parties were not very well prepared. The morning had not gone the way Ceroba expected, and judging by Al becoming less and less stoic the further along the conversation went, he had probably expected something different as well. But the morning was over, and the best thing to do was probably just move on with the meeting. Come to speak of that, what was there even left to discuss?

Quickly, albeit a little reluctantly, she replayed the entire conversation in her head, up to her leaving the table. Everything seemed relatively fine, but thinking it through a little, something was… off. Replaying the entire conversation again with a heavy sigh, Ceroba made sure to pay extra attention to any time the talk took a sudden turn. And about halfway through, she figured it out.

The conversation had been such a mess that when she had managed to determine what she wanted to learn from this everything derailed so fast she never had the chance to make them known. The very purpose of today, and it had gotten covered under an avalanche of awkwardness, uneasiness and good chowder.

Feeling reinvigorated, Ceroba shot up, pushed herself away from the wall, and opened her eyes.

Right away, she wished she had kept them close.

The energy that had come out of nowhere left her just as quick, and her body, her SOUL, all of her, froze in place.

She hadn’t turned around towards the kitchen before she opened her eyes, so when she opened them they were looking in the opposite direction.

And therefore, they were looking right into the space that had become the anchor to which all her mistakes had tied themselves. The dining room.

Her mind desperately begged her to run away, but Ceroba found herself unwillingly turning her gaze this way and that, scanning each and every detail in this space she had hardly entered since the accident.

The fireplace, kept burning indefinitely thanks to a little magic, still blanketed the entire room in its warmth, but the comfort it once gave had been replaced by a, rather ironically, cold feeling.

Keeping the fireplace company were the six planted bamboos, reaching all the way to the ceiling now. They would have broken through the wood above them long ago if not for, once again, magic keeping them from growing further. Something that Ceroba now regretted slightly. After all, if they were allowed to breach the roof, this place would never bother her again.

Allowing entrance into the dining room were the three hallways connecting it to the rest of the house. Ceroba stood at the edge of the hallway towards the kitchen, once the best place in the entire house to get lost in the delightful smells that often passed through it. To her left was the short darkened hallway that led to the front door, separated only by a sliding wall that she had bolted down after sending Kanako away. This room was never receiving guests anymore anyway.

That left the far hallway, weakly illuminated by the daylight creeping in through the windows beyond. Ceroba could barely make out the little dresser on which they kept the founder’s crest, and behind it the small gallery that held the stairs towards Kanako’s room. Those stairs, combined with the hallway, had been silent witnesses to her sweet daughter's demise. She had been in that part of the house even less then she had been in here since then.

Finally, and despite an ever louder pleading in her head, her eyes turned to the centre of the room, and landed on the kotatsu, still keeping its deadly secret hidden underneath. Its simple yet elegant wooden design, crafted by Chujin during their first year living here, looked as inviting as it had when the house was still a home. Countless evenings made up of good food, pleasant conversation and childish stunts had been experienced around it. Even now it would only need some dusting and it could easily provide such simple delights once more.

But Ceroba highly doubted that could ever be reality again. She had actually come to that realisation the first time she descended the stairs to the lab underneath it after Chujin revealed its existence to her. He had been distant for some time before his illness, preferring the family to eat outside or in the kitchen and coming to bed later and later. And he had unwittingly dragged the dining room down with him, the space acquiring an uncomfortable feeling the moment she had first moved the kotatsu away to reveal that damned trapdoor.

Before she had a chance to dwell on any other memories her attention was suddenly drawn away from the kotatsu, instead intently focussing on the dim room at the end of the hallway opposite her. She swore she saw something… odd. Blinking her eyes once to make sure it wasn't a speck of dust that had managed to land on them, she looked again, and saw the improbable. Movement.

Someone was moving around in the small room, hardly visible because of the weak light. But Ceroba could clearly see one, no, two silhouettes. One was small, most likely a child, but the other was about her height. Neither looked like Al. So who…

Her body tensed up when the silhouettes started moving towards her, the floorboards creaking as they did so. As they left the light from outside behind and came closer to the light of the fireplace Ceroba temporarily lost sight of the pair before they got close enough to the dining room that she could see that the child was carrying a hat. A very familiar hat. And the other one looked almost exactly like-

A determined looking Clover stepped into the dining room, followed shortly after by Martlet, a look of both curiosity and unease on her face. Both completely ignored Ceroba, who wanted to scream, to step forward and give the suddenly alive cowboy a hug and a long overdue apology, but could still do nothing.

The pair walked around the dining room, making sure to inspect everything, although Martlet kept her distance from the fire, until they eventually settled their attention on the kotatsu. Clover started inspecting it as Ceroba could see Martlet let out a small sigh as the bird looked sadly at the table piece. “This must be where they ate their meals.” The tone made it sound as if her blue friend had recently been to the funeral of whoever she was referring to right now. 

Seeing the usually cheery Martlet being rather down made Ceroba want to call out to her. Tell her about all the good memories she experienced here with her family. But the fox still found herself frozen on the spot, the darker part of her mind overpowering everything else as it feared for what it expected would come next.

Sure enough, Clover didn’t take long at all to notice that one of the corners of the kotatsu’s blanket was folded in an odd way, receiving a look of adorable curiosity from his partner in crime. After a quick glance underneath the fold the kid stepped up to the edge of the kotatsu, a yellow glow in his eyes, and started to lift it up. Well, try to, at least. Poor Clover wasn’t strong enough to lift the heavy wooden centrepiece on his own, much to the delight of the part of Ceroba that still hoped that she could just run away from her mistakes.

That same part let out a yell of desperation as the fox watched Martlet step up to Clover. “Hey, uhh…” The bird sounded more confused than anything else, but Clover didn’t seem to mind as he turned to her and asked for her help with the kotatsu. This seemed enough for the bluebird to guess the cowboy’s suspicions.

“Alright then…” Martlet stood up a little straighter as she looked the kotatsu over once more, before walking over to the other side. “On three.” She said with slight excitement as she put her wings under the edges of the wood, receiving a short nod from Clover in response. “One, two, three!”

With a heavy groan the kotatsu became airborne, slightly askew because of the height difference of the pair carrying it. But Ceroba paid no attention to that, nor to the looks on the duo’s faces that hinted at their difficulty moving the thing. She even missed how Martlet almost managed to trip over herself because she was keeping her eyes closed and simply following Clover’s directions. No, the only thing keeping the fox occupied was the blanket as it slowly dragged over the floor, until finally her eyes stopped following the blanket and remained glued to the secret it hid for far too long, now exposed to the world.

Ceroba barely registered the loud thump that rang out when the kotatsu was unceremoniously dumped in the corner of the room, or that the duo now stood in front of the trapdoor, still catching their breath, with Martlet barely able to contain her astonishment. The fox was too occupied with the maelstrom of emotions and memories that were now flooding her mind. Only when Clover started opening the trapdoor did her mind acknowledge the scene playing out in front of her again.

She wanted to scream to them, beg them to stay up here and leave the lab untouched. Wanted to plead with them to leave her secrets buried in history. Wanted to apologise to them for all the suffering she had caused them.

But she couldn’t. For by now the rational part of her had finally figured out what was happening.

What she was currently witnessing wasn’t real, at least not at this point in time.

This was a hallucination, based on the story Martlet had told her of how she and Clover had explored the Ketsukane estate after Starlo had intervened in Ceroba’s plan.

And so, she could only look on as fake Martlet turned to fake Clover, one wing pointed towards the now fully opened trapdoor. “Well, uh… After you.”

Fake Clover didn’t hesitate for a second and started his descent down into the crypt that contained the worst of Ceroba’s past, followed shortly after by an anxious looking bluebird.

Ceroba swallowed a lump she didn’t even remember forming, and her breath was unsteady again. She finally managed to move something, closing her eyes to spare herself from having to see more of the hallucination. She cursed her mind for forcing her to watch the moment the Ketsukane legacy was revealed for the horrible truth that it was.

Getting her breathing under control slightly the fox started repeating to herself that what she witnessed was just her imagination in an attempt to calm herself down more. The trapdoor had not been opened since that day and the Feisty Five had kindly put the kotatsu over it again the day after.

The trapdoor wasn’t visible.

She managed to take some deep breaths, savouring the fresh oxygen they brought with them.

The trapdoor wasn’t visible.

The chaos in her mind started to die down.

The trapdoor wasn’t visible.

Her body started to relax a little, her paws finally unclenching again.

The trapdoor wasn’t visible.

She opened her eyes again.

The trapdoor was visible.

Her blood ran cold as her mind started to race once more. Everything just now had been a hallucination, right? Martlet and Clover hadn’t just waltzed into her house and opened the trapdoor, right? It was all just a trick played on her by her own mind, right?

Right?

Then why was she still seeing the trapdoor, wide open, with the kotatsu still in the place Martlet and Clover had dumped it?

Ceroba wasn’t given any time to answer these questions, for in an instant her ears perked up and her fur stood on edge.

An unmistakable sound came from the trapdoor. A very emotional, motherly wail of pure agony was propelled through the staircase into the dining room. A scream Ceroba could never forget.

It was the scream she herself had let out when Kanako had fallen down.

Hearing the bone-chilling shriek again instantly forced images of that fateful event to replay in her head. Seeing the open trapdoor, witnessing a crying Kanako stare in disbelief at the TV screen, her child begging her to let her help complete her father’s work. Her brave face when Ceroba stabbed the needle into her soul.

And then, the unforgettable sound Kanako made when she fell to the floor, unconscious. Her cradling the limp body, begging her child to wake up, to stay with her mother. To not leave her mother alone. And finally, the moment she gave in to despair and let the tears fall.

As if chasing a ghost her left paw shakingly moved up to her eye, becoming damp the moment it touched it. She moved the paw slightly away from her face, allowing her to see it more clearly. A single tear hung low from the fur, before falling to the ground.

Behind her paw, the wailing coming from the staircase started to get louder, causing Ceroba to slowly lower her paw again until the trapdoor was fully visible again. Realising what was about to happen Ceroba quickly grabbed the wall again for support and kept her gaze on the centre of the dining room, all as her heartbeat started thumping in her head and her body started shaking almost uncontrollably.

The crying grew louder and louder, until at last the top of a red ribbon became visible, followed shortly after by bright orange hair, two drooped down ears, and a broken face that had no interest in anything but the unmoving body clenched tightly in the paws below it.

The fake Ceroba was basically dragging herself from step to step, almost stumbling over each one as she was focussed on nothing but keeping the child in her arms safe. She was trying to whisper something towards Kanako, but no sound escaped her mouth other than sobs.

The real Ceroba could only be grateful to her old self for carrying Kanako the way she had done, for the child was almost invisible from where she was standing right now, concealed for a large part by the arms in which she was cradled. Only her small feet were visible, swaying with each heavy step the hallucination took.

The sight made the fox want to gag, but thankfully her body wasn’t strong enough to actually force her lunch back up.

The fake Ceroba was now at the top of the stairs, briefly turning her tear-drenched eyes towards the real one, sending a chill down the spine of the latter. However, the former quickly turned away towards the hallway leading to Kanako’s room and started walking, or rather shuffling, in that direction, giving the Ceroba behind her a good look at how she was softly stroking Kanako’s head.

But the real Ceroba knew very well how that walk of pain went, and as she expected her hallucinated counterpart didn’t make it more than two steps into the hallway before collapsing against the wall. As she started sliding down towards the floor, the fake Ceroba started stroking a little more erratic. “Please sweety, wake up.” Her voice was weak and trembling. “Could you do mommy that one favour?”

The real Ceroba felt absolutely powerless. All she could do was watch this ghost from her past torment her about her failings. Still, seeing the horrible scene play out for her, the desperate part of her mind hoped against all hope that this hallucination could be different from reality. It hoped, just like her past self had for far too long, that Kanako would wake up. And so, it forced her lower jaw to open slightly, ignoring the extreme trembling it did, and started begging together with the fake Ceroba.

“Wake up.” The real Ceroba hardly heard herself over the wailing of her fake counterpart.

“Wake up!” Said fake had by now stopped all attempts at staying calm, clutching the emotionless face of Kanako in her arms as she started screaming her pleas right in front of the child.

“Wake up!” A different, deeper voice Ceroba couldn’t quite recognise, but sounded almost as desperate as herself, joined in the panic.

“Wake up!” Ceroba couldn’t stop herself anymore. Kanako had to wake up. She couldn’t leave her mother alone, not again.

“WAKE UP!” The fake pressed her snout against Kanako’s, tears flowing uninterrupted. The real Ceroba couldn’t take it anymore. She had to help her past self out, help her wake their child up. She started stretching out a paw towards the pair at the other end of the dining room, ready to rush to their aid-

“-ROBA, WAKE UP!!!” A strong hand grabbed her left shoulder, forcibly turning her towards its owner. The scared face of Al looked back at her, pure panic visible in his normally blank eyes.

Ceroba had some difficulty processing the sudden appearance. “Wha-” But she couldn’t spare him any time. She snapped her head back towards the dining room to refocus on helping her child, but…

Nothing. The dining room was completely empty. No Ceroba, no Kanako. Even the trapdoor wasn’t visible anymore as the kotatsu once again sat in its usual spot in the middle of the room, its dusty surface a clear sign it hadn’t been touched in months.

“N-no, she was… Kanako was…” Speaking was hard with how erratic her breathing was. So instead she lifted a trembling paw towards where she had just seen her old self and her precious daughter. “I-I saw them.”

But they weren’t real, the more grounded part of her mind countered. None of it was real.

The voice did little to calm her mind down, though. On the contrary, her panic only rose further as the fox realised that she had almost mixed fact and fiction. So as her breathing turned into borderline hyperventilating one single thought took control of her mind.

She had to get out of here.

Ceroba turned around so fast that she almost lost her balance trying to move as Al’s hand was still on her shoulder, but he quickly let go. Free from any obstructions she bolted away, passing the kitchen so fast she almost sideswiped one of the chairs with a paw. She rushed past the master bedroom and straight towards the front door. In her panicked hurry to get out she almost forced the door out of its rails. Finally outside she basically crashed into the railing of the veranda, grabbing it tightly with both paws as she took in the outside air with still very rapid breaths.

With the adrenaline fading away, her legs finally gave up trying to carry her, causing the fox to fall to her knees, but thanks to the support the railing gave her, the fall was slow enough to not cause any harm.

Not trusting her mind to not conjure up a new hallucination even though she was outside, Ceroba forced herself to look down through two supports at the sandy pathway in front of the veranda. The wind had picked up compared to the morning, and occasionally a breeze would carry small clouds of dust with it just above the ground. Following those clouds was a welcome distraction to Ceroba, allowing her body to calm down while her mind was occupied.

After seeing the seventh dustcloud dissipate the fox found herself calmed down enough to start overthinking everything, although she made sure there was nothing in her line of sight that could cause another episode.

Today had gone pretty much as bad as it could have possibly gone. From the chat with Starlo last night to now, everything turned out to be a complete mess. The meeting with Al had gone awry almost instantly, her mind had once again shown itself to be her greatest enemy, the lunch had… Well, okay, the lunch could have gone worse. And throughout all of it the most annoying headache of her life.

The headache was gone now, though. Instead all Ceroba could feel was an overwhelming tiredness. She couldn’t recount the last time she felt this drained, both mentally and physically. And for a monster who already experienced losing three people very close to her, of which two because of herself, that’s saying something.

A mocking grin crept onto her snout as she allowed her paws to slide down onto some supports. She really ruined everything nice about her life, didn’t she? She probably knew that deep down already, but today all of her mistakes had punched her in the face and left her broken. If Clover hadn’t shown up she might have been able to keep her fake life in the Wild East going until judgement day.

Ceroba almost missed the sound of the door closing behind her, followed by footsteps that slowly came closer, until on the edge of her vision she could just see Al silently sit down on the stairs of the veranda, looking ahead of him.

She sighed. If today had taught her anything besides confirming how much of a failure she had been, it was that it was time to stop being that failure, confront her past, and start anew. She owed that much to Kanako, Clover, her friends, and herself.

Taking a deep breath, she lifted her head up and gazed over the withered garden as she mulled over her words. “We never got to discuss what I actually want to get out of this, didn’t we?” If Al hadn’t already picked up on her tired state, her voice had definitely given it away now. 

His response to her question was a short glance over his shoulder at her, the look on his face enough for Ceroba to understand she could continue. “It’s simple really…” A sigh forced itself in between her words. “I… I just don’t want to be like this anymore. I want to stop running away and live in fear of all the mistakes I have made.” As she continued speaking, what remaining doubts she had left started lifting. “I want to be someone that others can rely on again. A person who can trust herself and isn’t afraid every choice might turn out to be bad.” The more Ceroba spoke, the more determined she got. “I want to know how someone like Clover can be so selfless and kind when the entire world seems to be against them.” Her mouth was dry, but she didn’t let it stop her. 

“I…” A final realisation suddenly came to her, one that perfectly encapsulated all that Ceroba truly wanted. “I want to be the monster that Kanako looked up to so much again.”

If she had spoken out that desire at any time before now, it would have caused her to drown in her sorrow. But this time Ceroba felt something different. Something that felt like exactly the opposite of that usual feeling. For from the very core of her soul came forth a feeling of power, of justified desire. It called on her to embrace it, to use it to move forward and reach for her goal.

With a sudden bout of energy Ceroba stood up and leaned on the railing, turning her sight to Al who was still sitting on the stairs, unmoving.

Ceroba found herself with little patience in her sudden energised state, but Al just sat there and did nothing for minutes, although it felt like hours to the fox. He looked extremely deep in thought. It started to worry Ceroba slightly, fearing something was wrong, but before she could speak up he slowly pulled himself up.

Although most of his face was turned away from her, the fragments that were visible to Ceroba were enough to tell her that whatever was going on, Al was very serious about whatever was going through his mind right now. Then, out of nowhere, he pulled his sunglasses down over his eyes. 

“I promised I would tell you about myself, right?” The question caught Ceroba completely off guard, especially so because Al still refused to look at her and was staring at some point far away in the Dunes. “W-well, you did, but I fail to-” Al put up a flat hand to motion her to stay silent, then lowering it and putting both hands into the pockets of his vest before continuing. “There is one last thing you deserve to know.”

Al let out the deepest breath Ceroba had heard either one of them make today before starting his story. “This… this is far from the first time I have gotten stranded somewhere.” Al still didn’t turn to look at Ceroba, preferring instead to keep his eyes on a tumbleweed slowly bouncing across open plains that surrounded the estate. “It actually happens more often than I’d prefer, and for a variety of reasons, but…”

Ceroba was paying too much attention to Al to notice the tumbleweed suddenly get enveloped in a ball of golden magic, which started rolling across the sand in seemingly random directions. 

“Normally I keep myself hidden until I can leave again. Almost never interact with the locals, really.” His tone was heavy, the topic apparently one that Al rather left alone. It caused Ceroba to smile weakly. There were some commonalities between them, it seemed.

The golden ball, meanwhile, made a jump, disregarding such trivialities as wind or gravity, before continuing zipping this way and that.

“However, I’ve always found myself unable to remain in the shadows completely whenever I am in an Underground.” Ceroba could barely make out the beginnings of a smile on Al’s face. “Something about the way you monsters manage to make a life down here bearable for yourselves, well… intrigues me.”

The ball started moving faster, jumping again before entering another cycle.

“So, when I realised it was an Underground I was teleported to, I couldn’t help but explore a little.” There was clearly a smile plastered onto Al’s face now, and Ceroba could even hear a barely audible chuckle escape his lips. “And when I figured out this Underground was unlike any I had visited before, I really couldn’t contain my curiosity anymore.”

The ball temporarily stopped moving as Al’s face drooped down slightly, before slowly finishing the cycle it was busy with.

Ceroba had also picked up the shift in mood, but decided against speaking up, instead letting Al continue talking. “That is how I came to observe Clover and his entire journey through this kingdom. From his fall to his… last decision.” The last few words had a sombre tone to them, and Ceroba couldn’t suppress the emotions she associated with that fateful encounter on the tower either. But she was fine with that this time.

At the same moment, the ball was attempting to hop towards the starting point of its next cycle, but all it could manage was dragging itself across the sand, before coming to a full stop.

Al stayed silent for some time, which caused an awkward moment in which Ceroba didn’t know whether to speak up or not. She chose not to, and soon enough Al let out another, even deeper sigh, and his shoulders slumped down ever so slightly more.

“That last action of Clovers… It reminded me of something similar that happened a long, long time ago. A selfless sacrifice, made for a group of people very dear to me… and for myself.” 

Al took off his glasses, mindlessly inspecting them, as if he was desperate for anything to stop him from continuing his tale. But when nothing came, he simply put the glasses back on, and shrugged. “I threw that sacrifice away. Turned my back to it.” His tone was rather casual, almost cold, as if he stated a simple fact. “And that one decision, to keep it very short, is why I am who I am today.”

Finally Al turned to look at Ceroba. His face wasn’t easy to read given the sunglasses covered his eyes, but judging by his mouth, he was about to get really serious. 

“I was a fool.” The venomous tone the statement carried made a cold shiver run down Ceroba’s spine. She had heard stories of humans being capable of some form of growling if they were pushed enough, but the noise that came from the back of his throat as he spoke, soft as it was, rivalled her own when it came to sounding absolutely threatening.

But that threat wasn’t directed at her, she understood that right away. Instead, the four words carried within them the presence of an emotion Ceroba knew far too well: self-hatred.

“I walked away from the best thing that could have happened to me. And when I saw what Clover did for you, for all of monsterkind, well, I became afraid that history would repeat itself.” There was still a heavy undertone of anger in his voice, but Ceroba could also hear a clear hint of fear towards the end.

“Now, I’m fully aware this situation is different. I rejected the hand offered to me, while you all embraced what Clover did as best you could, but…” He let out yet another sigh, one that seemed to empty out what anger was left inside of him, leaving only concern to support his words. “I could see just how much you, and Martlet, and Starlo, and so many more, have struggled with moving on. Over these last couple weeks I’ve seen all of you show so much desire, so much want, to make the best of what Clover gave you. But I’ve also seen how hard it’s been for you to turn that desire into action, not because you don’t want to, but because it's simply too difficult stepping over that line. That goes the same for your friends, by the way.”

Al turned his face away again, looking out over the garden. “Seeing you all like that made it progressively harder for me to just spectate. And when I saw you break down yesterday, I could no longer sit by idly anymore.” His gaze turned to a dune just beyond the garden, although unbeknownst to Ceroba, he was actually looking at the golden ball resting behind it. “Count that up with everything that has happened today, and, well…”

He looked over at Ceroba again and removed the sunglasses from his head, holding them in his right hand instead. With the glasses off, the fox could clearly see the determination that glistened in his eyes. “I’m not going to just help you. No, I’m gonna do far more than that.” Al’s posture suddenly shifted. His shoulders and his back stood up straighter, his left arm was firmly placed against his side and his right arm, still holding the glasses, was firmly placed against his abdomen, all as his face turned emotionless again in a way that came off to Ceroba very different from earlier moments when Al had turned himself almost unreadable again. If anything, it reminded her of the few times she had seen Royal Guardsmen interact with their superiors. But what remained the same was that determination, still glistening proudly in his eyes.

“I promise that I will make sure that Clover’s sacrifice will not be in vain. I promise that I will ensure you, Martlet, Starlo, Dalv, no, the entirety of monsterkind, will get the help and happiness they deserve. And I will not be leaving until I have seen to it that these promises are fulfilled to the best of my abilities.”

As Al finished speaking the only response Ceroba could formulate were nods. She was still processing everything that was said. Unlike any other time this happened today, though, it didn’t sour her mood or send her into another episode. She was having some trouble because, well, quite frankly…

She didn’t expect Al would talk about something that was clearly very personal to him. There had been so much emotion in his story that she’d almost think that the person that revealed himself yesterday couldn’t be the person standing in front of her now. And the unyielding determination she felt radiating off of Al at the end, while he was speaking of promises… She nearly wasn’t sure anymore which one of them wanted this more.

Al had apparently taken her nods as enough confirmation, for he put his glasses back on, and turned away from Ceroba again. “Very well.” He started descending the few stairs left between him and the dusty ground. “We’ll start tomorrow. I’ll meet you here.” When he was almost at the start of the pathway leading to the Oasis, he turned his head over his shoulder one last time, the fringes of a weak smile barely visible. “Take care, Ceroba.”

Ceroba watched as Al slowly walked down the path towards the estate gate. He held his composure small, looking down on the ground for most of the way. Only once did he briefly stop and look to his left, although whatever he looked at she couldn’t see, since it was behind a dune. If she could have, she would have seen the golden ball, lying in the sand at the end of a magically preserved line. A line that had been attempting to spell out a word, but hadn’t gotten further than halfway, before Al had lost focus.

When Al moved on again, the line was suddenly blasted away by a very sudden burst of strong wind that also took with it the tumbleweed, no longer constrained inside its golden shell. The weed bounced its way across the sand, eventually crossing the path, catching the attention of the fox still looking on from the veranda of her home.

Ceroba’s gaze shifted from Al, who had just passed through the gate, to the tumbleweed that suddenly jumped into her view. She was still standing against the railing of her porch, but only now realised just how much weight she was putting on the railing instead of her feet. 

Today had really drained her, hadn’t it?

The tumbleweed bounced along on the rhythm of the wind, until it promptly bumped into a cactus growing on the outer edges of the garden, and got stuck. Seeing the wind and the cactus compete in a tug of war over who could hold on to the tumbleweed, Ceroba remembered a fond memory that once played out in there, when the garden was still full of life.

In her mind, the garden turned green once again, and the tumbleweed became a ball. A ball in the hands of a young brown fox monster, happily throwing it this way and that whilst her parents were watching her play from a bench not far away.

She was holding Chujin’s hand as the two were talking about the latest happenings at his work. Some of the scientists had been complaining that the place always sounded the same, so one of the engineers, one who was well known to enjoy pulling the odd practical joke, had designed a robot that was basically just a walking gramophone that played music at random.

The scientists hadn’t appreciated it very much. 

The engineers had almost unanimously adopted the little waggling creation as their new mascot.

She had laughed at that. When she then asked what Chujin thought of it, he had responded that he tolerated the contraption. It could be very distractive, but sometimes it actually played very fitting music for what he was working on, and he found it helped his productivity. After some shared chuckling at that last statement, he remarked that Kanako would absolutely love it.

The little fox in question had taken that very moment to come to them in an absolute panic. Luckily it hadn’t taken much effort to understand the few words she was capable of between her sobs and gasps. She had gotten the ball stuck in one of the larger trees, and couldn’t get it out herself.

One look at her husband, and Chujin knew the fight was lost. He stood up and walked after the still teary Kanako to where the ball was stuck. The young fox didn’t stay sad long, however, for it only took Chujin two tries to get the ball out of the tree, and back into happily waiting hands of his daughter. Before he could walk back to his wife, though, a tug on his sleeve and some eyes that would make a puppy jealous convinced him playing with his daughter might be the better idea.

From the bench, Ceroba had looked as the two started running through the garden, trying to tag the other with the ball. Chujin was very obviously holding back, but the smile on Kanako’s face made it more than worth any care in the world.

It had been a great day.

A new gust of wind shook Ceroba out of her thoughts, and to her surprise, she realised a smile had found its way onto her snout. But beyond that, despite knowing what would eventually happen, she felt a warmth inside her she hadn’t felt in a while. It was a warmth she always cherished. And from today onwards, a warmth she would fight for.

The cactus finally lost out to the wind, and the tumbleweed broke free from its spiky grasp. Ceroba watched the thing start to bounce away from her house, following its trajectory until she couldn’t see it anymore beyond the corner of the house.

Before she turned her eyes anywhere else though, her gaze turned to the pathway that led past the house towards the back. Towards….

Ceroba sighed, and stood up.

There was one last conversation to be had.

Thanks to the rather windy weather the short walk to the grave had been rather comfortable, the heat of the swelterstone mitigated by the gentle breezes that carried over the Dunes unopposed by anything but the occasional cactus. It had also helped Ceroba walk off the tiredness she had been feeling. So by the time she reached the small grove that guarded her beloved’s final resting place from the sand, she could once again place that warmth she had found in herself back on the porch.

Given what she was about to do, she held onto that warmth as best as she could.

Upon reaching the small oasis of green Ceroba took a moment to take in this picture from the past. Not only did it contain Chujin’s grave right in the middle, but the greenery itself had an aura around it as if it only remained to give a glimpse of what the Dunes once were, before the uncovering of the swelterstone had done irreversible damage.

When she was done prolonging the inevitable, Ceroba approached the stone pillar that was the centrepiece of the memorial to her husband. The first signs of decay were starting to show themselves, with moss slowly creeping up from the base, and the text engraved in the stone partially filled up from small stuff carried into it by the wind. All of it was most likely a result from her visiting less after Kanako fell down, but at least the damage was wholly negligible compared to the state she had let the house fall into. Getting it repaired was an issue for another day anyway.

Ceroba knelt down in front of the monument, sitting on her knees with her paws placed upon them as she kept her head faced down in the way her family always showed their respect to the deceased.

For a while she remained silent and simply let the ambience overtake her. Then, when she finally felt ready to start, she lifted her head up. “Hello again, dear. I’m sorry it’s been so long.”

Of course there was no verbal response, but every time she came to talk here she felt a soothing presence, as if Chujin was right there beside her, just invisible. This time was no different, and as Ceroba felt the presence surrounding her, a nostalgic smile formed on her face.

“A lot has happened since I last visited you. There’s even more to tell you, and…” She put her left paw on the base of the monument, the smile faltering from her face. “I also have some things I must confess.”

Her breathing staggered for a moment, the weight of everything she had to say clear as day. But she pressed on. “I guess I should start from the beginning. I…” A sigh forced itself out. “I failed you, dear. I failed to keep the promise you asked of me. I… failed Kanako.”

Retreating her paw and holding her head back down, she continued. “She discovered the lab, and she found the tapes. I caught her just as she finished watching your last one.” The smile came back. “She was adamant about helping complete your work. I tried to talk her down, but, well, she takes a lot after her father. Stubborn to a tee.”

Despite knowing full well where the story went, the smile wouldn’t budge, even as tears started forming in her eyes once more and her voice became hoarse from a lump in her throat. “So, I consented. I… I used the serum on her.” She wiped away the tears. “A-at first everything seemed fine, b-but then…” Her mouth was almost completely dry by now. “She fell down.”

There was no going back now. She had confessed her worst mistake to Chujin. It made her feel heavy, as if the ground was desperate to swallow her whole so that he could scold her in person. But the warmth inside her also grew stronger, pressing her further.

“I-I know you made me promise I would never let it happen, and if you can never forgive me for it, I understand. I don’t know if I can ever fully forgive myself.” She swallowed hard, easing some of the tension she was feeling. “I still have hope, however, because she didn’t dust. And not long after she fell, the Royal Scientist sent out word for fallen down monsters she wanted to subject to a potential life-saving treatment, and I sent her there.”

The worst emotions were behind her now. In their stead, the smile grew ever so slightly stronger as Ceroba thought back at what happened right after Kanako had been taken away. “I might have joined her there if it wasn’t for Starlo. He invited me to stay with him and his posse. Came up with a new show every day for a month after I went to live there.”

Come to think of it, has she ever thanked him for that? He had kept his intentions hidden until the confrontation with Clover on the cliffside, but after that everything had gone so fast, she had forgotten all about it. Given how badly being North Star consumed him during that period, she really ought to repay the kindness one day.

“I’m really lucky to have a friend like him. He sacrificed so much in an effort to make me happy again, and I ignored most of it because I was…” here’s to another confession. “I was too busy drinking away my sorrow.”

Angel, she really had been a bad friend back then. In her mind she promised herself to never underappreciate that dorky farmer again. 

Not that she could linger on it for long, as the next, and perhaps the most hurtful, confession remained.

“Things went like that for some time. Starlo never gave up on trying to entertain me or the rest of the town, and I spent basically all my time in the tavern, until… someone visited the town. A human, by the name of Clover.” Thinking about the kid caused a few teardrops to form again. She would be eternally grateful to him for opening her eyes. “I must admit that at first I merely hoped to use him to get Kanako back. To continue your work using his SOUL. But the more time I spent with him, the more I realised that… that…”

She could only hope Chujin would forgive her for what she would say next.

“I love you with all my heart, my dear. And I will always stand beside you, but…” Ceroba had to look up and face the monument. “You were wrong about humans. Clover proved that to me tenfold. He sacrificed himself so that we monsters might have a chance to see the surface, and I will always regret not trying more to stop him from doing so.”

There, she said it. Her last confession was out.

So why did it still feel a little as if she had just betrayed her husband?

Shaking away that feeling, she stood up. The past was behind them now, time to discuss the future. “Clover might be in the castle now, but he gave me three friends that are helping me find myself again, even though that’s incredibly hard.”

Ceroba summoned a picture from her inventory. It was made not too long ago, at the weekly reunion the four of them held at Dina’s. She was standing in the middle, her head tilted slightly, a genuine happy smile plastered on it. Starlo was standing to her right, in one of his classic sheriff poses, one hand tipping his hat. Dalv stood next to him, a nervous smile on his face as the vampire seemed keen to disappear into his cloak. And to the fox’s left stood Martlet, her usual cheery self, one wing on Ceroba’s shoulder and the other waving at the camera.

Looking at the picture made her smile more. For as much as Clover’s sacrifice was a tragedy, it had also paved the way for a brighter future.

Alas, no time to think of the group for now. She put the picture back in her inventory and focussed on the monument again.

“There is one last thing I have to tell you. Yesterday a stranger came up to us and offered to help us. I accepted.” Knowing full well what Chujin thought of hasty decisions, she couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “You’re probably wondering why I would accept help from someone I know for less than a day, and, well…”

She briefly looked over her shoulder towards the house, visible in the distance. Martlet hadn’t quite gotten to the backside yet, so it still looked to be in quite the sorry state from this angle. But just before she turned back to the monument, a memory suddenly flashed inside her mind. And Ceroba knew immediately just what to tell her husband.

“During the time I spent with Clover, we travelled through the Steamworks, or what remains of it, anyway. And there, we stumbled upon an overgrown greenhouse, overseen by a robot you never mentioned, although I think she is one of yours. She was broken and malfunctioning, but Clover managed to get her back to her senses. However, when she saw the state the greenhouse had gotten to, she chose to turn herself off again, unwilling to deal with the consequences of her inaction.”

She extended her right paw towards the monument, placing it right beside the text under Chujin’s name. “In a way, I am just like that robot. I let our garden wither and decay, preferring to hide away from what I let it turn into. But I am not her. I am done hiding from the past. I will do what is right, and for that I need all the help I can get.”

Ceroba retreated her hand to her side and took a step backwards, smiling as she did so. “I’m sorry for waiting so long to talk to you, and I promise I will be back sooner next time. But I’m afraid this is all the time I have right now.” She turned around, preparing to return to the house. “After all, I have a garden that needs attending to.”

When she finished speaking, Ceroba felt the presence retreat from her side. It was enough for her to start her short journey back to the house, and to start the long journey towards the future.

When he decided that that idiotic fox was far enough away from the pathetic stone pillar she called a shrine, Flowey popped out of the ground. Today sure had been… informative.

He had spent the entire day shadowing the failure of a mother that now seemed to find strength in false hope. He hadn’t been able to locate that mysterious problem that called himself Al after gleefully mowing down his dumb, lifeless messengers, which had been extremely annoying. But Flowey understood well enough that staying close to that insane fox would bring him to the root of his issues sooner rather than later.

He was astounded at how dumb she truly was. Basically blindly believing and trusting someone that was even more shadowy than himself? And that name, “Al”... If that wasn’t fake, he wasn’t soulless.

Regardless, today had taught him that “Al” was probably more than capable of going through with the threat he had been too cowardly to present in person. That story about multiple universes had been highly alarming, especially the part in which he destroyed one because of a single mistake.

No, confronting him directly wouldn’t do.

The fox, however…

She was a nutjob, sure, but hearing her drown in despair had been simply delightful. She had truly messed up everything she possibly could’ve, apart from maybe her relationship with that wannabe jokester who called himself a sheriff.

Nothing he couldn’t ruin after he got his rightful place as master of this pathetic world back.

In fact, Flowey truly missed out by not checking this dustbin out sooner. Looking at the dumb rock, he could only daydream about how easy it would have been to have another get placed beside it.

Or two.

Too bad the crazy engineer had died before his oldest save. And he’d rather not think about their sickly sweet kid, knowing where she was now.

Anyway, that was enough thinking about useless what-ifs, the only thing that mattered now was, for once, the future. He needed to get “Al” out of the picture. And the fox presented him the perfect opportunity. If he ruined any chance she had at redemption, that would surely send a message to that outside fraud that he wasn’t welcome in this world. 

Maybe he could even push her to dust herself. Now wouldn’t that be funny?

Cackling at the many ways he could imagine himself ruining that useless waste of space, Flowey retreated beneath the ground again.

It was time to prepare for his opening move.

Chapter Text

The delightful fragrance of sakurayu tea wafted across the porch of the house as Ceroba enjoyed the early morning air. The last time she had a cup of the traditional specialty was in celebration of Kanako’s birth, and the time before that had been on her wedding.

The next time she could drink sakurayu again should have been Kanako’s wedding, but after everything that happened yesterday, she felt that today fit the message the tea symbolised well enough to justify enjoying a cup of it.

Ceroba took a sip as she looked out over the garden, admiring the work she did on it yesterday. After she returned from Chujin’s grave she had set to cleaning up the front of the house with diligence. She had gotten rid of all the broken flower pots and cleaned those still intact, stored away the garden tools that had been left in the open since forever, and got rid of almost all the dead plants and shrubbery. Only the larger tree stumps now remained. Martlet could probably help her with those, as well as with repairing the garden fencing and the tools that were broken. But apart from that, the garden and the porch looked in far better shape already.

She had also worked in the garden with a surprising amount of delight, being so busy she ended up forgetting the time until she noticed the swelterstone being covered up again. That had led to a hasty dinner of rewarmed chowder in the kitchen, although not before covering up the hallway to the dining room just in case, and then the first night sleeping in her own house since before Starlo had invited her to the Wild East.

That hadn’t been the easiest decision, especially considering the episode being in the dining room had triggered. But, carried by her newfound resolve to do better, she eventually chose to spend the night here instead of back at Starlo’s. Partially because she felt that if she wanted to move on, she would have to get used to living here again, but also in part because she wasn’t looking forward to talking with Starlo… at all.

She still felt as if she hurt her best friend during the confrontation two days ago, and then yesterday she had left the hideout without saying a word and spent the entire day somewhere else. So, she had decided to not return to the Wild East so late and instead return there tomorrow. Which was today.

Her cup of sakurayu was almost finished now. It was good timing, as the silhouette of Al came into view, slowly walking towards the house. By the time he reached it, her cup was empty.

Al greeted her with a smile and a small nod. “Good morning, Ceroba.” He looked at the cup in her paws. “Enjoying a nice cup of morning tea, I see. Might I ask what flavour?”

Idly rotating the cup, Ceroba returned the smile. “Sakurayu tea. It felt appropriate for the occasion.”

Raising an eyebrow at her answer, Al took a glance into the cup. His smile grew a little wider when he spotted the cherry blossom resting at the bottom. “It very well might be.”

Al then turned around, chuckling. “I see you cleaned up the garden too.” He mused. “How different it looks from yesterday. For the better, I may add.”

Putting the cup away, Ceroba followed his gaze. “Thanks. It felt good doing some work on it again, even if it’s still a graveyard compared to how it once was.”

Al must have heard the slight undertone of nostalgia in her voice, for he turned around to her again with a compassionate smile. “I’m sure it’ll be back to its former glory in no time.”

The smile didn’t last long, though, quickly replaced with his normal stoic expression. “As much as I would love another good talk, I must insist we get a move on. I dislike being hasty, but we have much to do today.”

Ceroba had already expected that today would be dictated by some sort of schedule, so she had made sure every task that needed doing in the house was already done. “I’m ready, just let me put this cup away and we can go.”

Al kept a steady, brisk pace as they walked towards wherever he was leading them. Ceroba actually had some difficulty keeping up with him. It almost seemed as if he was in a hurry to reach their location, but the way he walked betrayed the not so small presence of excitement too.

The oasis was reached within minutes. Given the early hour, it wasn’t very surprising to see that most of its residents were still either sleeping or in the middle of their morning routines. 

What was surprising, though, was that Al did not take a left turn towards Hotland, but instead kept straight and headed towards the Wild East.

This made Ceroba a little nervous. It was true that she wanted to talk to Starlo today, she had hoped to do so after finishing whatever Al had planned out. That would have given her time to prepare, but now that they were going to pass through the town she feared that he would already be up and awake. In which case a conversation would be inevitable, as unprepared as she was right now.

This kept gnawing at her mind until they reached the edge of the town. From the sound of it, or rather the lack thereof, the speaker system that played that single western styled melody all day was still turned off. Given that Starlo usually started that system up first thing when he woke up gave Ceroba some hope that he was still asleep. And if he was, the posse would be as well.

As it turned out, basically the entire town was still off the streets, much to Ceroba’s delight. She hastened her pace so as to get out of here before anyone would notice them, almost catching up to Al in the process.

But then Al suddenly stopped.

Right in front of the hideout.

Before Ceroba could comment on this panic inducing choice he turned around. “I sense that your SOUL is quite restless. ”He whispered. “Is something bothering you?” 

Grateful as she was for him at least keeping the noise down, the question still caught her by surprise. Had her nervousness been so obvious? Or did he simply know? Regardless, she was currently put on the spot, and she knew her companion well enough by now to understand lying was futile.

“It’s Starlo.” She whispered. “We had a falling out over you helping me, and I haven’t spoken to him since.” Al raised an eyebrow, but kept quiet. “I actually haven’t talked to him at all yesterday. I left for the estate right after I woke up, and the rest were still asleep.”

Al gave her an understanding nod. “Arguing with friends is never fun…” He whispered, the tone of his voice betraying experience, before mumbling something almost inaudibly that sounded like “Especially if you don’t make up right after.”

Pretending that she didn’t catch that last part, Ceroba continued explaining her predicament. “I feel like I let Starlo down, so I want to apologise to him. But, well, I hope to do it this evening. Because I…” A sigh forced its way in between. “I don’t feel quite ready yet.”

At this, Al couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “It’s understandable that you want to apologise, but I think you’re overestimating how angry he is with you.” Ceroba gave him a quizzical look, causing Al to smile. “He’s not asleep right now, Ceroba. He’s at Dina’s sobering up. I don’t think he had much sleep last night.”

Ceroba quickly turned around to look at the folding doors leading into the saloon, fearful that Starlo was standing there looking at them. Thankfully, he was not.

“Go ahead.” Al whispered from behind her. “Take all the time you need. I’ll wait here.”

Turning her head to look at Al, Ceroba was greeted with a patient smile. He nodded his head towards the doors to reinforce his message. She gave him a smile back before turning around again and heading for the saloon.

Upon entering Ceroba made sure to make as little noise as possible, even letting her hands guide the folding doors back to their resting position instead of letting them swing themselves back in place like normal.

There were only two monsters in the saloon. Starlo was sitting in the same place she’d found him the day before yesterday when they had their argument, hunched over what appeared to be a glass of Icewater. Even from where she stood Ceroba could clearly see that Al was right when he said that Star hadn’t slept much.

The other monster in the room was, of course, Dina. She sat in her usual spot behind the counter, diligently cleaning glasses, though that didn’t stop her from shooting Ceroba a ‘ and where have you been ’ look. 

Ceroba had ample experience with the silent wisdom Dina possessed, and given that Starlo seemed to have spent most of his time here yesterday, talking with the bartender likely wouldn’t hurt her chances. Besides, Starlo probably wasn’t the only one who would’ve cared about her unannounced disappearance.

Upon the fox approaching the bar, Dina finally put down the glass she was working on and instead put her left arm on the counter, her trademark grin ‘inviting’ Ceroba to take a seat.

“Well now, fancy seein’ you ‘round these parts again.” She teased. Her tone was quite low, but still loud enough for Ceroba to quickly turn towards Starlo, fearing he’d noticed, but the sheriff didn’t move an inch.

A quick tap on the bar turned her attention back to Dina, who was shaking her head. “Don’t worry ‘bout the sheriff. Poor fella’s totally knackered. I gave him some water, but he’s yet to touch the stuff.” She explained.

Ceroba gave one more glance at Starlo, but he still hadn’t made a single move. That was enough confirmation for her to let out a sigh and sag into the barstool. “I’m sorry I left town without saying anything, Dina.” She apologised. “That wasn’t the smartest thing for me to do.” 

“Hey, I was just pullin’ your tail a little.” Dina responded. “But ya’ ain’t wrong. Plenty o’ folks were pretty worried ‘bout you.” She paused a little, before sighing. “‘Specially given all that recent stuff with the human and Kanako.” Her grin disappeared. “This… This isn’t because of that, right?” There was an obvious hint of concern in her voice.

Ceroba looked away from the bartender. “It is… Sort of.” It was still painful talking about this. But it had to be done. And thanks to yesterday, it didn’t feel nearly as scary to discuss her ordeal or her past as before. So she mustered her courage, and looked back at Dina, who was by now visibly concerned about her former best customer. 

“You know how I’m trying to get my life back in order, right?” She questioned the bartender, who gave her a nod in response. “And you know how me, North Star and Clover’s other friends held a special service for him two days ago?” Another nod. “Well, after that service I had a minor breakdown,” She explained. “And then, a stranger approached us, telling us he wanted to help.” She paused momentarily, before continuing in a confessional tone. “I… accepted his offer.” 

Dina raised an eyebrow at that, and Ceroba couldn’t blame her. “I know how it sounds, but trust me, something about him just… He has no ill intent, I’m sure of that.” She tried to explain, but it only caused Dina to raise her eyebrow even further. 

Realising the pointlessness of trying to not come over as crazy, Ceroba instead opted to just get on with her story. She gave Dina a summary of what happened after the service, the altercation with Starlo that evening, and the heavy emotions and epitome she’d experienced yesterday. She didn’t tell her about the hallucinations, though, since she wasn’t comfortable enough sharing that.

Dina, for her part, remained quiet for as long as Ceroba was talking, only nodding or shaking her head at times. When Ceroba was finished the bartender let it all sink in a little more, her earlier worry mostly replaced with a feeling of sympathy. “Well, can’t say I would’ve made the same choice, but… I’m glad it’s helping ya’ move on.” She responded. “However…” She grabbed a Root Beer from underneath the counter and set it in front of Ceroba. “You’ve been talkin’ with me long enough. Go do what ya’ came here for.” She pointed at Starlo, still focused on his water. “An’ don’t you worry ‘bout that drink, it’s on the house.”

Whispering her thanks to Dina and putting the Root Beer in her inventory Ceroba made her way to Starlo. She was feeling much less stressed now that she’d had a sort of recital with the bartender, but seeing her friend sit there as if he was a statue still made her feel a little uncertain about his reaction. She didn’t like seeing him like this. And she didn’t like it at all that it was her fault. It made her feel unsure about how to start this.

At first she thought she would just sit down beside him before saying something. 

Then she decided she was going to tap his shoulder before talking.

Next she wanted to announce her presence by coughing a little.

In the end, she simply opened her mouth, and let out a weak “Hey Star”.

Starlo instantly shot up straight and turned around, his face full of shock. Ceroba tried lifting up a paw to wave hello, but it got only halfway before she was almost tackled to the ground by the force with which the sheriff hugged her. It took her a moment to recompose herself, but she quickly returned the favour. As she did so, she felt her nervousness melt away, and let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

Starlo must’ve heard her sigh, because he broke off the hug to look her in the eyes, nothing but relief plastered on his face as well. However, Ceroba could feel from the way he was holding her shoulders that he was still quite tense. That became even more evident as he began speaking with a slightly shaky voice. “Roba, I…” He started, apparently not quite sure what words to choose. “Why did you leave us without saying anything?” He swallowed before continuing. “I… you gave me quite the scare.”

His face never lost its smile, but Starlo’s voice betrayed an amount of worry she hadn’t heard him express since that day. It stung. “Star, I’m sorry I didn’t say anything, but…” She apologised, then took a deep breath before continuing. This next part was what she was most afraid Starlo would be angry about. “I feared we would have another argument, and I already felt like I’d upset you so much… That I upset you too much. So I decided to head out before any of you were awake.” She explained. “Though evidently that wasn’t the smartest choice. Again, I’m sorry.”

Starlo responded by taking her into another hug. “Well, I’m sorry I was so stubborn that night. Too stubborn, probably.” He said resolutely. “You just wanted support, but I refused to listen.” He separated again, a semi-apologetic smile on his face as he chuckled. “Guess we both weren’t thinking straight.”

Ceroba couldn’t suppress a chuckle of her own at that. She was glad. This was going far better than she’d thought it would. She even felt comfortable enough to try her own hand at a lighthearted comment. “Well, I hope I didn’t cause the great sheriff North Star too much of a headache.” She quipped, then gestured over at the table he’d just sat. “Wouldn’t want you taking over my former role as town drunk.”

Starlo looked at her in stunned silence for a moment, but soon enough the edges of his smile crept far further up his face, followed by an onset of such uncontrollable laughter Ceroba almost expected the entire town would wake up from it. When he finally got control of himself again, he had to wipe away a tear from his eye. “N-no, that doesn’t sound like a good idea. But I’ll have you know I did go out and help ma and da at the farm yesterday too.” His smile took on a more curious tone. “But what have you been up to yesterday anyway that it’d make you feel like it’d anger me?”

Ceroba gulped. The question wasn’t unexpected, but it was still a bummer she hadn’t been able to avoid it. “W-well, I was at the estate the entire day.” She started off, her previous nervousness clearly audible again. “I did some cooking, some cleaning, some… talking…” She said that last part hoping it would trigger a reaction from Starlo. It did not. The sheriff just looked at her with a raised eyebrow, the rest of his face unmoving as if made of marble. It told Ceroba he already knew what she was hinting at. And so, with a heavy sigh, she admitted. “...With Al.”

The moment she uttered the name, Starlo’s demeanour changed. The smile stayed, sure, but the rest of him looked like he had just been forced to admit defeat in a battle of wits. “So, guess you were thinking straight all along back then, huh?”

Part of Ceroba, a large part, wanted to immediately defend her actions. But she restrained herself. “No Star, I wasn’t. But over that night I decided it was worth a shot, and…” She gulped again. “Yesterday was… a lot. And not everything that happened was pleasant, some things were downright painful, but…” She did her best to put up a look of confidence, guided by that warmth she was growing quite familiar with, much to her delight. “It helped me more than I could’ve ever imagined. I’m feeling better than I’ve felt since before Chujin passed, and I finally feel like I can actually move on and do something useful again.”

Starlo remained silent for a while. But then, he chuckled. “I haven’t heard you speak like that in a long time, Roba.” His smile grew wider. “And I’ve missed hearing that you.”

Ceroba almost couldn’t believe her ears. “You… you mean that, Star?”

Starlo nodded his head. “Of course. I’ve known you long enough to know that you’re serious about what you’re telling me, and it makes me very happy. But…” He raised a hand as his eyes disappeared under the rim of his hat. “That doesn’t mean that I trust that “Al”. Something about him feels really fishy to me.” He looked up again, pleading in his eyes. “So please… be careful, okay?”

Hearing him say that hurt more than Ceroba would like to admit. The suppressed pain in his voice was telling of the fact he still hadn’t fully moved on from what she’d done himself. Part of him still feared she would do something brash again. And part of her didn’t blame him for that fear.

But the warmth that had pushed her further yesterday was keen to push her further again. Yet this time, not just for herself. And so it provided her with the confidence she’d need to ask her friend a particular proposition.

“I will Star, I promise. But, if there is something about Al that makes you distrust him, you could ask him about it yourself. He’s right outside the tavern right now.”

Starlo raised an eyebrow once more, before swiftly moving for the entrance to the tavern. This gave Ceroba enough time to trade a smile with Dina and give the bartender a thumbs up. After that, she followed after Starlo, who was clearly focussed on a certain individual, scepticism in his eyes. Following his gaze she could see Al still standing in front of the hideout, but he wasn’t alone anymore. A squirrel monster was very busy sating her curiosity by checking everywhere around the far taller humanoid.

Forcing herself to ignore Mooch’s antics for the time being, she directed her attention to Starlo again. “Well, go on. I assure you he won’t mind.”

Starlo didn’t respond for a while, his sight unwavering on the subject of his grievances. But eventually he blinked, shook his head, and turned back into the tavern. “No, not feeling it right now. Don’t think I could change my mind today anyway. But I will trust you, Roba.” He walked past her, briefly putting a hand on her shoulder. “Just… stay safe.”

Turning around one last time to look at the sheriff as he sat himself at his table again Ceroba understood that she’d done everything she could right now. Starlo just wasn’t ready. But he wasn’t angry anymore either. She could live with those results for the time being. And so, she gave one last nod to Dina, and left the tavern.

Mooch had apparently finished her visual inspection of the newcomer, and had gone over to bombarding Al with a million questions he seemed none too interested in answering. He was clearly doing his best to simply ignore the squirrel, and Ceroba stepping out of the tavern was apparently the perfect excuse he needed to dismiss her entirely.

Meeting him halfway, Ceroba glanced behind him at the now pouting Mooch. “Might want to check your pockets, she has a knack for taking anything that isn’t glued stuck to your person.”

Al simply smiled at her. “Oh, no need to worry about that.” He said with a little glee. “I think your friend will find herself outclassed.”

As he said so he fished a wallet out of his pocket, one that Ceroba knew well. Then, without even looking, he perfectly threw the wallet in front of its owners feet, the squirrel looking back at the pair absolutely slack jawed. 

Mooch’ realisation that this time she was the victim of her own hobby was highly amusing to Ceroba, who couldn’t suppress a few chuckles. She watched as Mooch looked around to see if anyone else saw, then quickly picked up her wallet and bolted for the door of the hideout.

When the squirrel was inside, Ceroba couldn’t hold herself in anymore, and let out a burst of laughter at the scene of irony she just witnessed. Al also couldn’t keep up his normal facade anymore, and soon enough his laughter joined hers, probably waking up anyone who wasn’t already awake.

“That’ll teach her to mess with others.” Ceroba managed to get out after she had calmed down some. “But I do think it’s time we move on. Don’t think you’re feeling like entertaining the entire town that way.”

Al had already recomposed himself. “Heh, right you are there. Right this way” He said, pointing at the gate leading towards Sunnyside farm. Normally it was closed for the night, but it seemed Starlo had either forgotten to do so last evening, or hadn’t cared about it. In his current state either explanation would make sense.

“Had a good talk with the sheriff?” Al seemed to understand what she was thinking about, which meant that he was either reading her mind again, or just really good at catching moods.

“Certainly, I’m feeling a lot better now.” She replied. “He’s still unsure about you, though. And I guess I cannot really blame him for that.”

“Oh, I do not blame him myself. I know that my… appearance was less than normal. And in hindsight I probably could’ve done it differently. Less sudden.” She agreed with him there. Under almost any circumstance she probably would’ve reacted exactly as Starlo had done. But her desire, bordering on desperation, to turn her life around had thrown that normal caution out the window long ago.

As they crossed the ruined bridge, Al continued. “I do hope he’ll come to understand I truly don’t mean any harm, but I won’t force him. Time will simply have to tell.” Ceroba couldn’t disagree with that sentiment. She had done her best to help, but only Starlo could really solve this.

However, the Starlo situation wasn’t what bothered her the most right now. They had reached Sunnyside farm by this point, and she just couldn’t keep her curiosity contained anymore.

“By the way, where are we going precisely?” She asked. “This path doesn’t go much further.” Indeed, the large metal door leading into the mountain was already visible up ahead in the distance. “Unless you’re planning on taking us through the Steamworks, that is.”

Al shrugged. “Well, yes and no.” He replied. This wasn’t much help at all, of course, but as soon as they reached the vault, he turned around towards her, made an exaggerated bow, and jovially announced “We’ve arrived at our destination!”

The theatrics took Ceroba by surprise for a moment, but she quickly recomposed herself. “Wait, the Steamworks? But this place is falling apart!” She tried to rationalise it in her head, but it didn’t make any sense at all. “It was barely functional when I went through here with Clover, and since Axis asked us to leave the place running I don’t think it’s gotten any better.”

Al simply smiled. Putting one hand against the door as if anticipating something, he replied with not a little amount of glee in his voice. “Oh, that won’t be an issue.”

Ceroba’s only reaction to that curious comment was a raised eyebrow. So as Al moved for the number pad besides the door he sighed. “I want to keep it a surprise, if you’d permit me the favour.”

Ceroba rolled her eyes. Given her own actions in this place she’d come to dislike people keeping secrets, but at this point the odds were in favour of this surprise not being harmful to her. So with a shrug she replied. “I’d rather not, but if you insist, I guess it can wait for now.” 

Al responded with a smile as he typed in the code for opening the door. For a moment Ceroba wondered how he could know that code if he’d never been here before, but then she realised he probably watched her type it in back on that day. The thought of having been watched the entire time was very much less than comfortable, but by this point such behaviour was far from the oddest thing she expected from her current companion.

The door didn’t care much for Ceroba’s inner deliberations, however, and with the hiss of releasing steam the giant metal structure started to open outwards. Instantly the sounds, smell, and heat it kept secure behind itself spread out across the small valley in which the door was situated.

It was all a rather unpleasant reminder of what she did, what she wanted to do, the last time she was here.

Al rejoined her in front of the now open door. Unlike last time the inside was dimly lit by whatever lighting was still functional. That at least was a small boon. When she had opened the door the first time it had been as if she’d opened some long forgotten pitch black cave harbouring dangers untold. Now it felt the slightest bit inviting to enter… Though the dangers were still there. Disguised mostly as memories.

She hadn’t expected to feel this uncomfortable at visiting the Steamworks again. Most of her bad memories were tied to the estate, after all. But then again, this was the place Chujin had worked, had failed, and had started his descent into the shell of the fox she’d once known. And it was where she herself had almost fallen victim to that descent as well.

“It’ll be fine, I promise.” Al comforted her in a quiet tone, apparently sensing her unease. “We’ll go at whatever pace you are comfortable with.”

She nodded weakly. If she could be comfortable in her house again, bar the dining room and Kanako’s chambers, she could enter the Steamworks again too. Taking a deep breath, she slowly stepped foot inside, the feeling of the cold metal surface of the floor contrasting quite spectacularly with the hot air she felt all around the rest of her.

Leaving the place operating had definitely had an impact. Not only was the temperature even higher than when she visited before, but the machinery hadn’t fared well either from running for so long without proper maintenance. Steam was leaking from far more places now, and most gears were now turning with frequent clunky noises, flooding the room in a horrid and distorted cacophony of broken sounds. It made her dread what they’d find further in.

Footsteps behind her told her that Al had also entered. “Are you doing okay?” He asked. “We don’t have to go in far to get where I want to go.”

“I’m managing.” She replied. The place was still putting her fur on edge a bit, but the initial reluctance was disappearing now. “Actually, since you have a place in mind, why don’t you take the lead?” She asked in return.

“Sure, I can do that.”

Al moved by her, settling on a gentle pace that she could easily follow. His gaze went this way and that as they moved down the hallway, admiring the intricate craftsmanship of the machinery.

“You know, I’ve got an acquaintance who’d love this place.” He commented somewhat excitedly. “Completely enamoured by everything steam. Far more knowledgeable about the stuff than could ever hope to be.”

So he did have social contacts after all. It almost made her wonder why he was so socially awkward yesterday. It also made her wonder if she could use this to get him to talk more about himself. “That sounds like quite the character.” She replied. “Do you spend a lot of time with them?”

Al looked over his shoulder at her. “Not really. I mostly know him because we have to work together sometimes.”

Interesting, but there’s more to be gained here. “Colleague of sorts then?” She furthered her questioning.

Al shrugged. “I guess you can see it that way, though not in the sense that we work for the same company.” He explained. “He has his turf, and I have mine. We just have to cooperate sometimes.” As he finished speaking, however, he stopped walking, and turned to Ceroba, his expression a bit annoyed. “I know what you’re trying to do, by the way.”

Damn, caught. Not as if she hadn’t expected him to catch on, but it was still a bit quicker then she would’ve liked.

“What are you talking about?” She replied, feigning innocence. But Al wasn’t having it, shaking his head and sighing. “Look, I get that you want to know more about me, but not right now, okay?”

It would be smart to stop here instead of antagonising her ticket to helping herself further, but she had one last card to play. “I’m just curious,” she started “you weren’t the… most socially adept yesterday, and that kind of made me suspect you weren’t used to interacting with others.”

“But then I just told you I have more contacts.” Al finished for her. “Right, right.” He sighed again. “Look, I wasn’t on my best behaviour yesterday, I know that. But I do have to talk with people regularly. But all of that is just… professional.”

So this wasn’t considered professional? That was curious, but not what she wanted to ask further about. There was an opening for a more interesting line of questioning. “Only professional? You have no one you can just, well, talk to? Casually?”

Al rolled his eyes, probably having expected the question. “Not really, no.” He answered.

She was pressing her luck as it was, but her curiosity wouldn’t let her end it here. There was one more question to be asked, blunt as it might be.

“No one? No friends you can talk about your day with? Family?” She almost felt bad for asking, but she felt herself justified given the fact he probably knew far more about her then she did about him.

Al sighed, defeated. He stayed silent for a moment, before answering with a single, sharp “No”. His tone was expressionless, but for a brief moment Ceroba saw a hint of regret flash over his face.

That was enough for her. From experience she knew there was more, a lot more, behind that single word, but that could wait. Especially since Al took on his stoic look again, his previous interest in the Steamworks completely absent. “We’re moving on.” He said, though it felt more like a demand.

The next few minutes were spent in silence, apart from the sounds of machinery and steam, as the pair progressed further into the facility. Eventually though it seemed that Al’s annoyance at their conversation died down, because he started whistling to the tune that played in here at set intervals.

Why the Steamworks needed a melody to play so frequently throughout the day was beyond Ceroba. When she’d asked Chujin about it after she once brought him his lunch he’d simply shrugged and said that it was to make people more productive, though he didn’t sound the slightest bit convinced at his own answer.

She did have to admit that it wasn’t the worst music to hear while doing work though. The piano especially sounded quite marvelous. And when she was traversing the place with Clover, it did help her boost through some of the places that caused her the most fear. Like the catwalks. Those damned catwalks.

In hindsight, the music playing so often was more than fine.

But then suddenly Al stopped walking. They were currently standing on top of a slightly elevated solid pathway, so that didn’t bother her too much, but they were standing in the middle of one of the giant pools of coolant, which did bother her. No telling what this stuff would do if you touched it, except that it could never be good.

Beyond that, there wasn’t a whole lot around them, save for the one thing Al was currently looking at. “Uhm, why are we stopping here?” She asked. Al replied by pointing a finger at the object of his attention. “Because that is the goal I was talking about.”

Ceroba’s jaw almost fell down in disbelief. Had they really come all the way out here for the damned welcoming sign? That thing was a broken mess half submerged in the coolant!

“This is your surprise?!” She yelled out, annoyed. “This is use-”

She stopped her sentence as Al turned towards her with an immensely big smile. “No,” He replied, giddy with obvious excitement, “this is.”

Before Ceroba could react at all Al leaped off the pathway, right down towards the coolant. She hurried over to the place he jumped off, a mix of fear and anger boiling up inside. But the fear gave way as she looked over the edge to see Al standing above the coolant, supported by a bright golden platform, undoubtedly conjured up by its occupant.

“What are you-” She started to ask, but was interrupted again as Al moved the platform to the edge of the welcoming sign.

“I thought this thing would be a good place to start what I want to do.” He shouted back over his shoulder. “Trust me, you’ll be amazed!”

Ceroba could only stand and stare as Al shifted his full attention to the sign. He put both his hands on the broken letters. And then, Ceroba’s jaw headed for the floor.

Both of Al’s hands started to glow gold, brighter and brighter, before transferring the golden glow to the sign itself. The glow took on a circular form, expanding further and further across the sign, until the centre started to return to its normal colours even as the circle kept expanding further.

But the places that it had passed over weren’t what they were before. They looked clean, shiny, and completely undamaged. It was as if they had never been touched by the hands of time. 

For the sign itself that meant that the letters glowed more brightly pink, and the occasional flickering stopped. The lamp that formed the top of the sign and that had been broken in two became whole again, its light shining again for the first time since the works closed down. The wiring that had escaped their containment and had been hanging on the outside disappeared, no doubt back in their intended place. And the metal casing lost any dents, rust, or missing plates. Then, finally, the entire thing rose up in the air as the golden circle reached its bottom, repairing the pillars that had once supported it, but had long since collapsed, back to their former strength.

Within minutes the entire sign had undergone the dramatic makeover. No longer did it look like a broken old mess, but as if it had just been turned on for the first time, ready to welcome visitors to a newly opened facility.

Ceroba could hardly believe her own eyes. Magic with the power to completely change the fabric of objects was unheard of. And since Al was still channeling his magic, the show was not done yet. The circle had now finished the sign, but the parts of it that had fixed the pillars continued to travel down into the coolant, temporarily obstructed from view as they moved across any solid surface they could find.

Soon enough the golden line was visible again as it crept up the side of the pathway that Ceroba was standing on, and for a moment, her eyes went wide, fearful that she too would be affected by its powers. But it quickly passed under her feeat, leaving only a slightly tingling feeling that soon dissipated.

The pathway had been less damaged than most other parts of the steamworks, and as such didn’t change much visibly aside from losing any spots of dirt, garbage or rust. The same could not be said for the rest of the facility. As the golden wave crossed them, pipes stopped leaking, gears started turning smoothly, and the melody coming from the speakers sounded much clearer.

Soon enough a golden line was traveling across surfaces in any direction and place that Ceroba could see. Floors became neat again, walls regained their original appearance, and any stalactites growing from the ceilings disappeared. Pathways that had been partially or wholly destroyed during her previous visit were repaired completely, giving access to rooms and hallways that she and Clover hadn’t been able to go to.

Ceroba was so amazed by what she was seeing that when the golden lines finally moved out of sight, it felt as if it had all happened in seconds. She turned back towards Al with a dumbfounded smile on her face, though her mind was unable to think of anything to say at the moment. But even if she had thought of something, she wouldn’t have said it, because Al was still focussed on the sign, channeling even more magic into the fabric of the Steamworks. Ceroba could barely make out the edges of a smile on his own face too. 

She looked back towards the core of the Steamworks, towards the places she’d travelled to with Clover. Her mind was full of curiosity at what was happening to the rest of the facility, and the urge to follow the path of the magic to marvel at its wondrous power was only barely contained by her usual careful and precautionary self.

And so, she simply stood there, looking around and around at the radically transformed surfaces of the Steamworks, as the person responsible for that transformation continued powering it, the smile on his face not just a consequence from seeing the results of his work, but also because he knew what was yet to come.

The greenhouse was silent. It was never not silent. It had been silent since the scientists had disappeared and left the robots and the plants to their fate, only being disturbed once by the trespassing of two travellers on their way to destiny. The robots that roamed around the Steamworks since that day didn’t dare enter, for they were not programmed to do so, or, in the case of the one for whom programming did not matter that much, the ominous vibe that the place brought forth was dissuasive enough.

But the silence was disturbed once more, as a very low humming sound crept closer and closer, and soon enough the cause of that sound forced itself onto everything that was part of the greenhouse. From the walls and the flowerpots, to the machinery and the automatons, nothing was spared the touch of gold. And with it, the greenhouse transformed, to the point that when the golden wave had moved on, the place looked completely different from how it looked before.

Robots that had been inoperable for years roused from their slumber, going back to their tasks as if they had never been broken. Their systems were too simple to understand what had happened, and their memory banks had become blank slates, no memories of old services provided to give them any indication that their situation had ever been different.

All except a few.

In the far corner of the greenhouse Jimmy, as his compatriots had called him since forever, was checking himself over. He had ducked away when he’d noticed the golden hue approach him, but had been hit all the same. However, instead of damaging him, as he had expected it to do, he had felt as if years of neglected maintenance had been solved in a single moment. In fact, it felt as if he was factory new again. No more rust, no more bad wiring, no more half-locked joints.

He was just testing out how much strength he had regained when his buddy Frank walked over. He also looked years younger. “yo, you got any idea what just happened?”

“nah, but i feel so much better.” Jimmy replied as he lifted up one of the crates of spare parts lying around. “all i know is that that golden whatever got me. think it’s the scientists doing stuff?”

Frank shook his head. “don’t think so. those whitecoats all left ages ago.” He fiddled with his antenna. “not getting any radio signals yet either. we’re still on our own here.”

Jimmy tried searching for signals himself, but indeed there were none. If the scientists had returned, they would have surely reactivated the communication systems first thing.

“sooo… then what caused this?”

“ain’t got a clue, mate.”

Jimmy looked around. They weren’t the only things that that golden thing had changed. The greenhouse looked wildly different, busier yet less used then it had ever done in his time functioning.

“i ain’t complaining tho.” He commented to Frank.

“oh for sure not.” Frank seconded, before suddenly perking up. “hey, think it also affected our stash?”

Jimmy turned around to look at their hideout in the corner, barely visible behind some shelves. “i hope not, we spend years scavenging all those weapons.”

“yeah.” Frank replied. For a few seconds neither of them moved or said anything, but then Frank started hurrying towards the hideout. “i’m not risking it man, i’m checking it out.”

Jimmy followed closely behind. If something had happened to his antique pistol, he would do… something.

Man, if only he could use it again like he’d been able to against those two trespassers. That had been the most fun he’d ever had.

The pair of relatively tiny robots had only just waddled off to check on their illicit armoury, when with a heavy sigh of steam the last sleeping robot awoke, and rose up to meet the new greenhouse.

Guardener hadn’t expected anything at all anymore after she’d put herself back into sleep. She had failed as a robot and as an employee by letting her domain get out of hand, a failure she couldn’t live with. In truth she had hoped that she’d never be turned on again.

But then she had felt that odd sensation, which had been followed in turn by feelings she hadn’t been able to feel in a long time. Mostly feelings from her legs, which had broken off long before the tramplers had showed up. Legs on which she was now standing again.

She didn’t have any time to process that improbability though, for her attention was almost immediately occupied with the state of the greenhouse. It was no longer the untamed wilderness of plants that it had been when she had gone to sleep. Nor were there broken items anywhere, or storage boxes placed in the most random of locations.

Instead the entire place looked as if it had never been used. Brown, untouched soil was ready to accept its first batch of seeds, which were stored in sacks that had never been opened before. Only a few of the flower pots already contained flowering flora. Everything looked ready for her to start her first shift, for her to bring this place to life.

Guardener had no clue as to how long she’d been sleeping, but even if that turned out to be decades she would be hard pressed to believe someone could make the greenhouse look like this. It looked as if time itself had been turned back, which was scientifically impossible. Magically impossible too, from what she had been taught about it.

“yo, Guardener, you awake too?” A shrill voice sounded from behind her. She turned around to look at the source, which was an odd sensation since she had to readjust to walking on legs again. It turned out to be one of her subordinates, the one with the v-shaped antenna. It was currently wielding a highly outdated firearm.

“I AM, YES. THOUGH HOW I CAN NOT UNDERSTAND.” She replied to it. Her voice was clear and devoid of any glitching.

The robot responded by shaking its head. “don’t know either. the entire place got hit by something gold, and now we look like this.”

“THAT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE. A COLOR DOES NOT HAVE THE POWER TO ALTER MATTER.”

 The robot shrugged. “ehh, i don’t care that much. i feel better than i’ve ever felt, so what’s there to complain about?” It pointed at her legs. “you also got a fix from it.”

Guardener looked down at her legs, and lifted one. It still felt foreign to her. But she could not deny that having legs again was quite pleasant. She could use her hands solely for gardening again. But still…

“WE ARE ROBOTS. MACHINES. OUR PURPOSE IS TO UNDERSTAND AND TO APPLY OUR UNDERSTANDING TO OUR FUNCTIONING.”

“well, i might not understand how this happened, but i do understand that i can do a lot more now.” The robot reasoned. “‘sides, why bother trying to understand if you think it wouldn’t make sense anyway? my database definitely doesn’t have any adequate answers for this.”

Guardener couldn’t really understand how a machine could be designed so laid back, but she had to admit there was wisdom in its answer. 

She looked out across the greenhouse again. Some robots, which she hadn’t seen active since before the place got abandoned, were already starting to plant and water seeds, or prepare more soil. There was not a single trace of her mistake. Her failure never appeared to have happened. She could start anew, and avoid it this time. So what if she couldn’t understand why?

Turning back towards her subordinate, she bowed her head.

“THANK YOU. THIS CONVERSATION HAS BEEN MOST ENLIGHTENING.”

“hey, no problem.” It chirped. “and if you ever want to hang out, just call, ‘kay?”

“I WILL LET YOU KNOW IF I REQUIRE FURTHER ASSISTANCE, YES. FOR NOW, YOU ARE DISMISSED.” She looked back up. “I HAVE A GARDEN TO ATTEND TO.”

Axis was enjoying himself. The last few months had been positively great. He and his new wife had spent a splendid honeymoon touring across the Steamworks, and had now taken up residence not far from the generator. He kept himself busy fixing up as much of the facility as he could, whilst his wife took care of the household.

He had just given a Jandroid some much needed repairs. The poor thing hadn’t even been able to sweep the floor with its broom, and that was basically all those Jandroids lived for. Now he was heading towards a charging station to see to himself.

He hated to admit it, but he was getting worse. His batteries had already been affected badly by his long time in stasis, and now that he was functioning 24/7 again they were getting close to replacement. That was not something he was looking forward to, since replacing them himself would be extremely dangerous. Not to mention that he had to find replacements first. Beyond that, a new filling up of oil for his joints wouldn’t be a luxury either, and his tire was also wearing down to the point of uselessness.

The station was in sight now. A Goosic was minding its business beside it, probably completely lost. They never did have the best pathing systems. But at least their music kept the place entertained.

Well… most of them, anyway. This particular Goosic seemed to have a serious issue with its sound, for whatever left its mouth could definitely not be called music. Oh well, another thing to add onto the pile of fixes.

Axis was about to enter the station when the Goosic suddenly turned around frantically. Had it finally figured out where to go? He followed its gaze for the fun of it.

Right away, all his own systems froze to a stop.

Approaching them at considerable speed was a line of gold. Axis had never seen anything like it, and quite frankly he didn’t want to understand it either. He turned his wheel around to start moving away from it, but it caught in a small hole in the floor. This sort of thing happened occasionally, but for this particular occurrence he truly wondered why his creator hadn’t just given him legs.

He tried to free himself, but his wheel wouldn’t budge. In desperation he tried turning around to have the alien line in his vision, but he only got just over halfway when the line touched him.

For but a brief moment, Axis’ entire being shuttered and glitched. Then, he fell to the floor as his sensors went into apparent overdrive. His wheel wasn’t stuck in the floor anymore at least. He also felt drained. Had the fall damaged his batteries even further? He ran a full system scan to confirm, but the results were the opposite of his expectation.

Instead of being more damaged, his batteries had gotten less damaged. In fact, they weren’t damaged at all anymore. And not only that, but all of his systems and machinery reported zero faults. When he had run the check this morning he’d had well over a hundred minor warnings, and four that were considered serious.

Confused, he lifted himself off the ground, and the ease with which he could do so took him by surprise, almost sending him tumbling down onto his back. Regaining his composure from the swift rise, he was in for yet another surprise.

He hadn’t been the only thing that had gotten some instant repairs. Everywhere he looked the walls were clean and shiny. Not a single damaged tile could be seen anywhere. Looking down to the ground below him he could see that the gap that had caught him was also gone, as if it had never been there in the first place.

Then, music hit his sound sensors, wonderfully crisp and clean. Turning to the source he could see the Goosic from before, jamming out to its own beat. It looked as if it had just been built by the engineers.

Axis shook his head. Something very, very odd was going on here. His precious Steamworks, his home, had been hit by the weirdest and most unexplainable thing, and he was going to find out what had caused it. And he would do so right no-

An error flashed on his screen.

Right after he’d charged himself back up.

…

And after he’d checked in on his wife. She must’ve been left speechlessly terrified by this whole ordeal.

But then, he’d get right to it. 

Absolutely.

If you were to ever ask Flowey if he was scared of something, you’d eat a face full of friendliness pellets… at best.

But right now?

Right now you’d be met with silence. Because for as much as he hated to ever admit to something so weak as being scared, he was scared for his life right now.

He had trailed the idiot fox and the usurper from her home all the way to the Steamworks of all places. Which would have seemed like a stupid choice to most, but he understood the value of it being abandoned pretty good.

The fox seemed confused about it though. And she was supposed to complete a dangerous and highly experimental serum. Right.

Oh, and it turned out Mr. Freak didn’t have any friends, how unexpected. Sadly nothing Flowey could use to his advantage right now.

But then…

Then he started that “surprise” of his.

Flowey thought he had seen it all. He should’ve seen it all, or Clover wouldn’t be dead right now.

But that… magic.

It was something he had never seen before. Never felt before either, since ducking down underground had not been enough for him to not get hit.

And it scared him.

Yeah, he’d admit it, just this once. All that talk the usurper did yesterday had made him cautious already, sure. But to see such power for himself…

He pondered the situation from his vantage point across the coolant pool from where the magic was happening. The fox was, of course, utterly enthralled. Getting her to break might be harder now that she knew what her “helper” could do.

And any confrontation with the usurper would be laughably one-sided, against his favour.

Flowey hated it. He hadn’t felt scared since that day Asriel made the glorious mistake of letting feelings cloud his judgement and getting himself killed. Since then, he’d always been the one who scared others.

So to be on the receiving end once more was… infuriating.

He gnawed his teeth. He couldn’t surrender, wouldn’t surrender. This was his world, and his story. He wouldn’t let it get stolen by some wannabe saviour with social issues just like that.

If that freak wanted conflict, oh , Flowey would give him conflict.

By now the golden magic had reached most of the Steamworks and brought it back to glory. But what none of the spectators knew was that the crescendo was yet to come. The orchestrator had purposefully directed his influence across the facility in such a manner that where it had started at the sign, it would end… at the generator.

The old machine was a ghost of its former self at this point. Decades of dutifully powering the underground had already left it worse for wear, but now that it was forced to power the Steamworks once more, it was rapidly reaching a critical point. Axis had never been instructed on how the generator works, and as such had no clue just how bad the machine had gotten. 

But none of that mattered anymore.

From all directions, waves of gold descended upon the machine. It was already experiencing the effects of the magic, since the draft through the vast piping of the Steamworks had improved significantly thanks to all the fixed leaks. This, in turn caused the fire in the boilers to embolden to dangerous levels for what the generator was still capable of containing, resulting in a very irregular throughput of steam. It caused the gauges that were placed all around the machine to clank and clinker as their indicators swung wildly around as the pressure inside rose, fell, and rose again, as if they were metronomes that had gone haywire.

The closer the golden lines got, the more violently the generator functioned. Some pipes that had yet to be reached began bursting at the increase in pressure they simply couldn’t contain anymore at their age, though that problem fixed itself as the pipes got touched by the magic of the golden waves.

Axis had finished charging and was hurrying back home. His path took him directly past the generator, and upon seeing the golden waves doing their thing to it, he stopped, and watched. He couldn’t have arrived at a better time, for the waves had now all reached the edges of the furnace, the very heart of the generator, creeping closer and closer to each other until they connected again in its centre. As they did so, they did not disappear, but rather formed into a solid ball of gold that settled onto the floor of the fully repaired furnace permanently, and instantly heated up far beyond what any normal fuel was capable of.

Axis could do nothing but watch as the repaired generator reignited with a fury. The gauges stopped their flaying, falling down to zero for but a second, before every last one of them rose to their maximum as the hiss of steam forcing its way down any free path it could find filled the air.

Throughout the entire Steamworks residents and visitors were suddenly alerted to a rapidly approaching cacophony of clanking as the superheated source of power the facility relied on reintroduced itself to every subdivision, every engine, every corner that the place contained. Every machine that it reached instantly revved up to maximum output, a sudden change they had been prepared for by the golden magic.

Ceroba, Flowey and Al, being at the exact opposite end of the Steamworks were the last to marvel at the sight and sound of steam claiming its rightful place in the aptly named facility once more. As they did so they also noticed that the coolant reservoir that surrounded them dropped several metres in very rapid fashion, since the generator was once again in need of so much coolant that it prevented pooling in the lower areas of the Steamworks. Soon enough, parts of the floor long submerged in pink resurfaced again, the coolant directed through the intended canals once more.

Al finally released his grip on the sign, which now stood high and dry above solid floor. He moved the platform he was standing on back to the pathway, stepping off right beside a still speechless Ceroba.

“Don’t get to do that every day.” He chuckled, still coming down from the high himself. “How was that for a surprise?”

All Ceroba could manage to reply with was a stunned “How?”. 

“Simple explanation really.” Al stated. “I just altered and rearranged the molecular core of the materials that the Steamworks are made of.”

Ceroba twitched an eye. That might’ve been a simple explanation… for the likes of Chujin.

Al cleared his throat. “I, uhh, made everything as it would’ve been when it was new. Not just in looks, but completely.”

That was slightly better, though it mostly explained the what, and not the how. She rubbed her eyes to gain a little focus, before reiterating herself. “Right, but just… Exactly how did you do it? I don’t know of any kind of magic that is capable of such a thing.” Truth be told it was equal parts amazing and frightening. Not even in the history books she had to read at school had there been any monsters mentioned that could wield this much magic potential.

Al sighed. “There’s a scientifically sound explanation for it, but I don’t think you’d understand it if I explained it right now.”

Wait, scientific? “But that was magic you used just now.” Ceroba countered.

“I guess it’d count as magic too.”

Okay, this was getting nowhere. And she had managed to avoid getting a headache today so far. No point in forcing one upon herself. “Fine.” She murmured, before recollecting herself and deciding to move on to the next point. “Anyway, what was the point of this, exactly?”

“Well, the Steamworks are an excellent location for what I have planned.” He started. “For one, no one will interrupt us, and I can move around here without the risk of being seen by other monsters.”

There was an explanation she could actually understand. It was weird enough already for herself when Al turned up out of nowhere, and judging by the reaction of her friends, they weren’t all that thrilled either. No need to guess how other monsters would react.

Al, meanwhile, continued explaining. “But the state of this place would’ve made it hard to really get any use out of. Far too dangerous and decrepit. So I… Let’s just say I repaired the place so it can be used again.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Ceroba agreed. “So what now?”

Al simply smiled. “Well, would you be mad at me if I said I had one more surprise left?”

Ceroba’s eyes went wide with annoyance. “Yes” She growled bluntly.

“Okay, okay.” Al relented, holding his hands up. “You see, I didn’t just repair the place, but given that it won’t be used for its old function, I took the liberty of… altering the layout a little.”

“Go on.” Ceroba spurred on, but Al sighed. “I think the rest can better be explained by seeing it for yourself.”

This caused Ceroba to sigh in return. Sure, given the previous “surprise” there wasn’t much reason to expect something bad, and he had at least given a hint this time. But that didn’t take away from the fact that she hated surprises.

“Fiiine” She conceded, letting the world roll on her tongue for a little. “Show me.”

Al nodded, before turning around towards the path deeper into the Steamworks. “This way, it won’t be far.” 

With a grumble, Ceroba followed. Her annoyance was however soon replaced by her previous amazement as they got further into the facility. The entire place was completely unrecognisable from her previous time travelling through it. She didn’t have to watch out for sudden bursts of steam from leaking pipes, and those odd steam vents placed into the pathway were turned off as well, much to her delight.

But those were relatively small changes compared to what she saw after they left the building in which Axis had made his entrance last time. Not only was the coolant lake far less of a lake and more of a collection of interconnected canals, but where there had been the need to travel by robotic manta before now existed a direct pathway from where they stood to the offices. It also connected to several other locations she could just barely recognize as places she’d visited with Clover.

She continued to wonder at the sights around her until the pair reached the entrance into the offices.

Al turned around to face her when he stepped into the doorway. “This is it.” He proclaimed. “This will be the central hub from where we work.”

Ceroba took a good look at the building. It looked far more pristine now. All of the windows looking out over the canal zone were intact again, reflecting the pinkish light of the coolant across the small ledge on which the building stood, although she could also see normal lights shining behind the windows. 

She had to admit that she was curious as to what awaited her inside. She followed closely behind Al as they entered. The first hallway, in which she could vividly remember being chased by a certain robot, wasn’t much different. But once they entered the actual office area of the building her memory betrayed her.

It looked nothing like it had during the chase. Not only had all the rubble been cleared away and any gaps in the floor been fixed, but a lot of the previously strewn about chairs, tables and other items were gone or stacked neatly in corners. 

But those were just minor things compared to the entirely new sections. The walls that had separated the hallway in two and had forced her and Clover to run across the entire place to escape Axis just weren’t there anymore. In their place was now a rather comfy looking dining table.

The table wasn’t the only homely thing either. The walls had undergone a makeover too, looking far less like they belonged in a stale office and rather as if they were part of a place you’d like to spend time, like a saloon or a diner. The tiled floor had either been replaced or covered under a layer of dark red carpet, and the lights now weren’t part of the ceiling anymore, but instead hung down a little.

To one side of this apparent dining room was a small open window with a door next to it that had the word Kitchen on it. Through the window Ceroba could barely make out various stoves, sinks and a fridge or two.

Another side of the room held a hallway that she remembered used to loop around, although there was only one big, straight hallway now instead of the two smaller curving ones. The hallway had the same decoration as the dining room, and was flanked by a row of doors on each side.

“What is this place?” She asked Al, astounded.

“Well, I didn’t really have a place of my own here yet, so I decided to make one.” He explained. “Besides, it gives us a place to spend time in between sessions, to eat, and to sleep.”

Right. With everything that had happened today Ceroba had almost forgotten about the fact that this was all supposed to help her get her life in order again. At least it was indeed a nice thought that if they were to work here in the Steamworks that she’d have a place she could rest without having to go all the way back to the Wild East or ho-.

She shook her head to get out of her thoughts. “Hang on, a place to sleep?” She asked. “I already have a home. Two if you count the hideout.”

“I am aware, but I still wanted to provide you with your own place here if you’d ever need it.” He replied, before perking up. “Actually, it isn’t finished yet. Would you mind following me?”

Al started walking into the hallway, halting at the first door on the left. It was a simple grey door, very similar to the doors that were all around the Steamworks. But in this hallway it looked very out of place. Speaking of, all other doors in the hallway were of the same simple grey design, safe for the one exactly opposite the one they were standing at right now.

That door was clearly made of metal, with the only decoration a simple band of yellow and black stripes. It looked even stranger than the rest.

“Those are my chambers.” Al commented, noticing her interest in the metal door.

“Chambers? How many rooms do you have?” Ceroba asked.

“As many as I want.” He answered. “And you can have as many as you want. Just place your hand on the door and think about what you want them to look like.”

Ceroba hesitated for a second. Having seen what Al was capable of made the idea of using that magic for herself as enticing as it was frightening. But the temptation overpowered the fear. So, she slowly moved her left paw up towards the door, letting it linger inches away from its surface for a little, before firmly pressing it against the door. 

She closed her eyes and started imagining. As much as the hideout had truly become a second home for her, her preference was still very much for the quality of the estate. The eastern styled interior with its beautiful wooden decorations. The warmth and comfort the fireplace provides throughout the hallways, separated by ornate sliding doors. The various potted plants that give that homely feeling. Her comfortable bed. Even the kotatsu, despite its dark secret, still had many cherished moments connected to it that ensured its integral place in the household.

Ceroba could feel something shift underneath her hand. Startled, she opened her eyes, only to be greeted by an exact copy of the sliding doors of her home. The only difference was the addition of a plaque containing her own name in neat, cursive writing.

Her breath hitched. Even after everything she had seen so far it was still uncanny to see something change into something completely different. Especially because she caused it herself this time.

Ceroba hesitated. Part of her felt that this was magic she shouldn’t mess with. That this was unnatural. But, if it could make a perfect replica of her estate’s door, then…

The frame of the door felt so invitingly familiar under the touch of her paw, as if it was telling her that it was going to be okay. That what she thought was behind it would indeed be so.

“Don’t be afraid, open it.” Al spurred her on from the side. “It’s perfectly fine, I assure you.” 

She sighed, and slowly slid the door open. She was greeted by a sight so recognisable, yet so alien at the same time.

The room that the door opened into was styled exactly like the estate. The walls were made of strong, yet pleasantly crafted wood, as was the floor. A fireplace was installed at the far end of the room, filling the space with the sweet smell and sound of crackling embers. It was accompanied by the same potted bamboo she had at her home. And right in the middle was a familiar kotatsu.

Seeing the kotatsu made her flinch and take a step back. She had willingly chosen to remember it, but that did little to abade the effects of laying eyes on the thing.

Al quickly stepped into the room and lifted the kotatsu up so that she could see beneath it.

There was no trapdoor.

Ceroba let out a sigh of relief before muttering a quick “Thank you”. After calming down she stepped into the room herself. It was slightly bigger than the dining room back home, and there were only two doors instead of three. The right wall was devoid of any entrances, being decorated by various items ranging from a statue of the Ketsukane founder, to a landscape painting of the Meadows, to a couple eastern styled bells.

“So?” Al asked. “Happy with how it turned out?”

Ceroba absentmindedly responded with a nod as she walked around the room. She was occupied by taking in all the things that were perfectly copied from the estate.

Al likely noticed that she was distracted, because he started walking back towards the central hall. “We’ll continue tomorrow.” He stated. “You can take the rest of the day to explore the rest of the Steamworks if you want.”

With Al gone Ceroba was free to check out the rest of her chambers alone. She was basically finished with the dining room, so she turned her attention to the one remaining door in the left wall.

Inside was what she could only describe as her bedroom. She couldn’t spot a single difference. Even the clothes hanging in the walk-in extension were the same.

She walked up to the bed. It was neatly made up, three pillows just visible above the edge of the blanket. Putting a paw on its surface gave the exact same soft feeling as she was used to. Only the fact that instead of seeing into a hallway when looking through the door she could see part of the replicated dining room was a true giveaway that she wasn’t at home right now.

It gave an… odd feeling.

She allowed herself to fall down on the bed, and took some time going over everything that had happened today. Sleeping at the estate again, talking with Starlo, all of this at the Steamworks.

If yesterday hadn’t happened, today would’ve been a sound contender for the most emotionally eventful day of her life.

At least today had mostly been positive.

Still, a constant feeling was nagging in the back of her mind. When she had made herself that cup of sakurayu this morning she hadn’t anticipated that it would be quite such a literal new beginning. But it also felt like the kind of new start that shouldn’t exist.

She was currently lying in a bed created by the most insane magic she had ever witnessed, and she still wasn’t sure if this kind of magic was even possible. 

Then again, Al wasn’t from around here. Maybe it was considered normal where he came from?

That wasn’t a very comforting thought either.

Ceroba turned around onto her side. As she did so she noticed the picture standing on the bedside. A smiling family of three, happy and completely unaware of the nightmares that were ahead of them.

One of them was dead now, and the status of another was currently unknown, but she was very much not well off either.

Which left just one, the mother, who had developed a tendency to get in way over her head and act without thinking.

Ceroba sat up and took the photo into her paws.

Just what had she gotten herself into this time?