i am on fire, i'm blooming, baby

[ngah]

Who: Undyne and YOU
Where: Deep into the bathhouse
When: 11/17
Rating: Rated T by the ESRB (cw: mentions of canon suicide)
Summary: Undyne meets the Babadook
The Story:

I. DANGER

It's too hot.

Undyne does not take to heat well, though at least it isn't as dry as Hotland was. The steam clings to her scales and keeps her nice and damp, but the heat is completely unbearable and tiring her out faster than she should. It's only a few minutes of running around and fighting off the weird, aggressive monsters until she's panting and trying to look for somewhere to rest for a bit.

She collapses into one of the seats along the side of the halls, wondering if Alphys and the others are alright in this place, when she starts to hear anguished moaning.

Damn. Is someone hurt? Undyne drags herself back to her feet and hurries as well as she can through her exhaustion to follow the sound.

The moaning begins to take the form of words the closer she approaches. "It's all because of me... I let them die because I'm the most important..."

Undyne grits her teeth and trudges on, still searching, until she sees a shape laid out on the ground. Shit, they really are hurt. She jogs over to the person on the ground, but as she gets closer, she sees a familiar blue. A flash of red hair.

The person laid out on the ground is herself. And she's not hurt, she's just... lying there. Undyne narrows her eye. This has got to be a Mirror, right?

The other Undyne hides her face as soon as she catches sight of the real one, whining, "Don't look at me! I'll let you die, too!"

"What the hell are you talking about," Undyne says, voice low in warning. "Are you a Mirror?"

"God, no!" And the other Undyne laughs, a shrill, manic sound. She drags herself to her knees, and looks up at Undyne, who recoils away when she sees her eye. Normally tinted yellow, this Undyne's eye is a bright golden. "I'm your true self! Your Shadow! Can't you tell by looking at me? How perfect I am?"

Undyne grimaces. "I don't sound like that!"

"Of course, everyone only cares about me," the Shadow jeers, grinning wide with sharp, sharp teeth. "That's why the human killed my friends, that's why Alphys killed herself, that's why I'm so alone and don't let anyone near me anymore!" She starts to crawl towards Undyne, who steps back. "All I care about is my own bullshit! All I want to do is cry about myself!"

And she suddenly starts wailing, big, cartoonish tears rushing forth from her single eye, pulling at her hair. Undyne jolts, summoning her spear in surprise.

"Are you going to kill me, toooo?" the Shadow taunts through her tears. "Then are you going to kill Sans and Papyrus, too? Toriel? Everyone and everyone until they're all dead because of us? So you can cry about how useless we are and yourself and yourself and yourself!?" She flashes a grin, face covered in tears. "Because you really are like this, aren't you? You know Alphys died because she wanted to get away from us and our selfish, selfish love!"

"Shut up! Don't talk about her like that!" Undyne snaps, gripping her spear tightly. She'll kill this thing if that's what it takes to get it to stop.

II. SAFE

[Undyne pants, finally collapsing near the lockers of the entrance. There's no way out, but at least this area looks like it's free of those creatures. They're not monsters after all, are they? Monsters aren't mindless like those things are.

Shadows, she guesses. Do they each reflect someone too?

She wipes sweat off her forehead, readjusts her damp ponytail, and grabs water from a locker, drinking a ton as fast as she can until she coughs and splutters.

What a nightmare.]

( will match format! )

Comments

I;

[restinglichface]

Lup's luck really has to run out at some point.

Even after spending the majority of this event running from here to there, burning through shadows and saving what people she can, the elf's still managed to avoid a one-on-one confrontation with her own shadow. Which is probably a blessing, but just makes the woman feel a little paranoid. Where was her shadow hiding? Or was this just another case of her being forgotten completely?

Either way, she's just starting to feel her dwindling spell slots when she happens to pass by the twin Undynes, one crying hysterically while the other threatens her with a spear. Even not knowing the other woman outside of their single conversation together, Lup can tell the two apart with ease.

"Am I interrupting somethin' or can we tag team the hell outta your double and get this over with?"

[ngah]

Undyne, the real one, turns in surprise. It's that... non-human lady who looks human. With the fire. She doesn't have much to lose if Lup starts getting the wrong idea, so she's not quite so instantly horrified to see her. In fact, as soon as Lup starts talking, a menacing grin splits across Undyne's face.

"Sounds good to me!!" she says, turning her attention back to the Shadow, who coughs and gasps.

"No!! Don't kill me! I'm so weak and pathetic, does it even matter?? I'm you, remember!! I'm the same Undyne that only cares about myself even as I just cry all day about how strong I used to be!"

"You're no one, thing," Undyne says hesitantly, but with more confidence now that Lup has offered to back her up. "I'm nothing like you!"

"I really," the Shadow gets out through sobs, "hate myself, so much I'm going to, kill me..."

[restinglichface]

Undyne lucked out having a near stranger run into her during this, because wow, what an annoying double.

"Pretty sure my girl over here--" Lup gestures vaguely in the real Undyne's direction. "--has it all right. She's baller and you're a big phony."

Lup steps forward into position near the real Undyne, turning a too sharp grin down at the shadow, flicking her braid over her shoulder. Even having fought against a few of these over the course of the event, the elf doesn't quite take any of this seriously. She's just eager for another fight, another shadow to burn her anger out on.

"You wanna go first, sis? Your face, your shot. I'll back you up."

[ngah]

Undyne grins wide suddenly at Lup, then rounds on the Shadow, who cringes away, whimpering. She summons a bright cyan magic spear and shoots it directly at the Shadow, who covers her eyes.

The Shadow is pierced through the chest with a sickening tear. No blood is spilled, monsters don't have blood, but the spear remains impaled through her body.

Then, the Shadow laughs. Manic and hiccuping, the Shadow grabs hold of her head and laughs.

"I'll teach you not to deny me!!!" she cries out, then absorbs the spear into herself as she transforms into a scaly blue monstrosity, dress almost like an evil queen apparently materializing around her. Spears protrude from her giant body as if they are a part of her. The bottom of the giant, amalgamous mess of fishy body parts and teeth seems almost like it is melting into the ground in a puddle.

The toothy shadow unhinges its jaw and roars.

"Well, at least she'll put up a good fight," the real Undyne muses as she summons yet more spears, not yet throwing them but keeping them at the ready. She grins at the Shadow, almost taunting with new confidence. Talking is too difficult. Now fighting, she can do.

[restinglichface]

Lup's spent a great deal of her long life in combat, but even she winces slightly at the way Undyne's spear slices right through her shadow, the noise disturbing enough to bounce around in the elf's head, even if there's a complete lack of gore from the actual injury.

This is precisely why she deals with magic. Sooo much less gruesome.

But the spear seems to do nothing but piss the shadow off more, causing it to quickly shift it's shape, going from meek to monstrous in a matter of seconds. Undyne doesn't seem too distressed over the abrupt change, watching her shadow with an ease that Lup falls right into next to her. The creature has managed to pick two of the beings in Wonderland who are awfully difficult to intimidate. In comparison to the Hunger, this shit is nothing.

The creature roars with enough force to send both women's long hair out flying behind them, but Lup patiently waits for it to stop before she's raising a hand to whip up a fireball out of thin air, tipping her head towards the real Undyne with a grin. "I think saying 'good' is a little too generous, babe. I'm thinking passable is more accurate." Sparks dance from her fingertips and the elf hurls her fireball straight for the shadow.

[ngah]

The Shadow shrieks when she's hit with the fire, bulbous body parts shrinking away like a recessing tide in the area she was blasted, sizzling and steaming. She very obviously does not like fire, which makes sense, considering its piscine appearance.

"Cut me some slack, I haven't had a passable fight in months!!" Undyne remarks. "But it looks like you're right -- she's all teeth and no bite!"

The Shadow targets Lup in an attempt to avoid further burning, summoning giant cyan spears of light in a vertical half circle around her, huge spears appearing above her head and at her sides. They then all attempt to pierce her at once, thrusting towards her.

Undyne trusts Lup to deal with that as she wishes, and sends an array of smaller spears at the Shadow. They pierce her, but she doesn't appear to mind them as much as the fire.

[restinglichface]

It seems like even a change in shape hasn't improved the shadow's constitution much, Lup's fire sizzling right through it's unstable form while the elf pumps her fist in the air, unable to stop from yelling out a quick 'Booyah!' at the successful hit.

Sure, challenging fights are her absolute favorite, Lup loves the feeling of danger pressing into her when she's neck deep in it, burning through spell slots and feeling the exhaustion of running low on magic tug at her bones. But damn, after a few stressful weeks in Wonderland, it feels incredible to be fighting against something easy that makes her feel powerful and pretty untouchable. Or at least Lup feels that way until too many spears pop into existence out of nowhere, aimed straight for her.

It's inelegant, but Lup barely manages to avoid getting straight up impaled by the magically floating weapons as she runs and flops to the ground just as they sail overhead, narrowing avoiding her long ears.

"What's what you two and spears?! Watch it!"

[ngah]

"It's our magic pattern!!!" Undyne calls out to Lup, dodging a few spears herself as she does. "We do two things! Spears and," Undyne gestures with the spear in her hand, "this!"

Ding!

The Shadow is green now. When she finds herself immobile, the Shadow starts to undulate in place, agitated, shrieking. Her heart-shaped SOUL appears exposed before where a chest might be, if the dress-like aspect of her is any indication.

"Now she can't move out of that spot! She can still spit, though!!"

On cue, the Shadow's many-toothed jaw unhinges and spits out a sea of glowing spears that starts filling up the room.

"Uhhh, that's not what I meant!!!!"

[restinglichface]

Now this fight's getting interesting. With the Shadow completely immobile, it makes whipping up a souped-up fireball for another attack a hell of a lot easier while Lup darts from side-to-side, avoiding whatever glowing spears come shooting straight her way.

"Alright, that's right up there on the list of grossest things I've seen in this place so far." Before she takes a shot at the Shadow's exposed, floating heart-thing though, the elf just has to tip her head to the side and give Undyne a look that's mixed between morbid curiosity and slight excitement. It may be gross, but what an attack. "Can you do that?"

Look, she just has to know.

But no more time to waste! Lup dodges another spear and casts fireball right at the Shadow's SOUL, hoping that's exactly as big a weakness as she's assuming it is.