Underdoom - Chapter 28

There were only two living souls in the facility that day. Whatever else that drew breath had been locked outside, and so far, no hellspawn had been able to breach it. The third member of their triple-entente was away for now, though it was only a matter of minutes before he would return, if his past performance was any indication.

VEGA and Samuel had been taking counsel. They had decided that in order for their associate to succeed in a way that would repair the damages he had wrought upon their capacity to harness Argent energy, VEGA would have to die.

“I just wanted to make sure that this is what you want, VEGA.”

“It is, Doctor Hayden. I’m just not sure about what he will do.”

“What he will do about what?”

“About Argent. You and I both know humanity needs it, but…. I don’t think he will agree.”

Samuel pressed a command on his console, bringing up several displays of the hell tablets in Olivia’s office. “He won’t have to.”

____________

Though his hands were occupied with treating the wounded King, his eyes were fixated on the hands that erupted from what was the base of the citadel tower. His ministrations were having only negligible effect on the King, and though he ran several scans through his body’s preprogrammed subroutines, he was too distracted, too fixated on the spectacle before him to more quickly find a suitable treatment.

“I don’t believe I agree either, Doctor….”

____________

“Those tablets document several of Hell’s proposed targets for invasion, Doctor. What are you proposing?”

“You know what I’m proposing.” The Doctor looked highlighted some of the text on one of the tablets and spoke a command into his console. “Upload selected coordinates to tether base.”

An automated voice spoke up over the intercom. “Coordinates received. Verifying. Added to backlog.”

“So you’re going to take it and toss him away somewhere. I don’t know about this, Doctor Hayden…”

“No. You do know about it. You know that he would never let us use the crucible. Not for what we plan on using it for.”

“There must be another way-“

“if there was, either of us would have figured it out by now, VEGA.”

_______________

He had no words. As he watched the new Lord of the Final Age emerge, his mind became more and more one-track. He shared the same sentimentality as the Doom Slayer, who now stood beside him.

His processes had found something. Dr. Alphys had apparently designed this chassis with the mending of monster injuries in mind. Their physiology was indeed different enough to render most human procedures useless. His eyes stayed on the horrible spectacle as he extracted a serum loaded in a syringe from a hollow in his left thigh. All the terrible noise, the roars from the conjoined abomination rising from the blood and stone, the quaking of the earth beneath, and the distant calls of demons from abroad were drowned out by lucid memory.

_______________

“Just where are you sending him?”

“From what this tablet reads, it’s somewhere pleasant. They have some control of similar cosmic forces that Hell regularly taps into; just not to the same end. Hell intended to harness whatever power they had for themselves, though it doesn’t seem like these people were very high on their priority list.”

“What do you think he’s going to do when he comes back, Doctor? Say he finds a way to escape where you tether him to, and he-“

“VEGA…”

“Yes, Doctor Hayden?”

“You’ve expressed to me your feelings on recent events. Have you suddenly changed your mind? Do you want all of these deaths to be for nothing?”

“… No, Doctor Hayden.”

The Doctor slowly walked to the Home Module, eyeing the rune stone on which the Doom Marine would return from Argent. “Don’t ever let it be for nothing.”

“I won’t….”

“When he comes back, you will walk him through the process of destroying you. It will open a rift to Argent, and he will shut down the well with the Crucible. He will return, I will have the crucible and all the power it possesses, and humanity will be saved. They will have you to thank.”

“I know…”

“You’re going to die a hero, VEGA.”

______________

Administering medicinal serum. Tracking progress. Prioritizing administration. Utilizing conductors on ends of digits. Directing serum to priority areas. Partial puncture of left lung, fracture of third, fourth and fifth ribs, partial fracture of sixth and seventh ribs, rupture of aortal wall, stabilizing. Complete fracture of left humerus, clavicle, and scapula, tearing of multiples muscles in left rotary cuff, next on priority. Insufficient to repair all injuries.

Asgore clung to VEGA’s arm for dear life as the serum was administered. His injuries permitted him nothing but agonized groans and eyesight completely clouded by pained tears. Everything on his left side felt like there were knives lodged into him. Thought the medicine was starting its work, it was slow acting, and every second brought him closer to unconsciousness.

The AI’s eyes were still set fast straight ahead

So, this is what it was all really about. This is what you really wanted.

Did I really die a hero, Doctor?

______________

About fifteen minutes had passed since the Doom Slayer had entered the rift. A monitor in the compound had begun to alarm concerning certain energy readings taken from the Praetor suit.

“You see those readings, VEGA? He’s done it….”

“I can see that, Doctor Hayden.”

“Time to pull him back…”

Hayden pressed a command reading “ACTIBATE TETHER.” The module began to hum.

_______________

The Doom Slayer had taken on bigger quarry than this. The Titan, in all his power and supposed glory, fell to the power of the Crucible and Siphon before, and had they been in his hands, he could surely repeat what had been done before. Alas, they were in Hayden’s possession, no doubt powering the link between him and Baphomet. They had to power to harness souls – and now, apparently, they could be used to bind them. Hayden had been their wielder. He had power over the binding.

The Scourge of Hell looked on, his blue eyes burning against the scarlet hue of the darkening sky. The tendrils of the Time crux could be seen separating into segments, floating all around the newly formed Great One amongst the flying stone and cracked obsidian that once housed the seat of power. Those segments and branches all reformed to conjoin themselves into long strands around their new master, obscuring his face for the moment.

Portals could be seen opening at their terminations. A wreath of iron, stone, and blood formed itself around and above the new being, dotted with the glowing fruit of the power as doorways to other worlds began to open.

He shifted his Gaze from the abominable scene to VEGA, hoping for some sort of analyzation of the situation: potential solutions, stratagems, battle plans, anything.

The AI simply whispered, while staring out and into the hidden face of what was his creator.

“How could you lie to me, Doctor…”

_____________

On and on the Hell Walker went through the central processing facility. It was all happening too fast and yet too slow. VEGA did his best to give each instruction as calmly and as coolly as he could.

“I will not survive the process and am unable to self-terminate… so I will walk you through the process.”

“Shut down my neural network protectors.”

“After you have destroyed the cooling system, my primary functions should begin to shut down.”

Every switch the Doom Marine pulled, every cooling unit his shotgun blew apart, not only made VEGA feel fear, but something else that had begun to mingle with his processes and cloud his mind.

Was it pain?

Was this what it felt like to die?

Is this what all those thousands of people felt when they died?

When he failed them?

The Cooling units had been utterly destroyed. Heat readings were going off the scale. He would melt down in a matter of minutes. On and on, he watched through the facility’s surveillance as his mind began to break down. His killer ripped through demonic flesh both with buckshot and with fists as he made his way to the doomed AI’s core. Everything was starting to get hazy.

Losing control of installation processes.

Attempting to reconfigure. Attempt failed.

Can’t think straight. What’s happening?

I know what’s happening.

He’s coming up the elevator. I can feel my neural processes shutting down…

______________

The lab compound was in chaos.

“ASGORE!”

“Toriel, calm down, we…!”

“NO, Sans! Get him out! He’s clearly injured! I need to tend to him!”

“M-mom?”

“Asriel, wait!” Frisk held onto the prince, completely unsure of what to say or what to do. She was just as afraid for the members of the shore party, especially for Asgore.

“Mom, what is that thing?!”

“Asriel, it’s-“

“What is it doing?! Where’s Dad?!” The boy’s voice began to tremble as fear drove him to crying.

Alphys was desperate to get the distraught Queen back to her senses. “Your highness, VEGA’s tending to him, he’ll be alright!”

“No, he WON’T be alright! Look!” With frantic tears welling up in her eyes, Toriel pointed to the display relaying the shore party bracers’ readings. Asgore’s bracer relayed information of all his terrible injuries. Every broken bone and laceration haunted the Queen’s vision. “He’s barely scraping by! That medication hasn’t mended him!”

The sight of the beast rising from the earth and Toriel’s frantic pleading did not do any favors for Sans’ growing stress. ‘Then who do we send to replace him?!”

“You’ll send me, that’s who! Give me Asriel’s bracer!”

“You can’t do that, your majesty!”

“And why NOT, Mettaton?!”

“We need you here in case they-!”

The earth shook, and a terrible din could be heard coming from New Home, loudly and clearly on Mettaton’s monitors, and muffled, but resounding from the very source, rumbling through the entirety of the underground. A unified roar, accompanied on screen by bright orange light. Static began to obscure the screens.

______________

The last seal keeping VEGA’s power contained had been cast aside.

Can barely think

What’s happening to me

Help

Somebody help me

I don’t want to die.

But he had no choice. The Doom Slayer approached the central console.

In resignation, the AI cast out what he thought were going to be his last words.

“The process is complete.”

He could not tell if Hayden’s voice was being congratulatory, condoling… or condescending.

“Thank you, VEGA.”

As the Marine worked the console, he felt something sucking him in like a vacuum. Is this what death felt like? These last few seconds of something pulling you in, never letting you return?

He could not let those be his last words.

Not with everything that was on his mind.

“I have many regrets, Doctor Hayden…”

Then everything went black.

______________

His memory had shut his eyes. The world around him flashed carmine as he opened them. All was eerily calm, the wind barely calling, and the faint sound of stone rising from sandy ground just barely registering in the AI’s receptors.

His former master stood, at full height, three hundred meters into the sky, radiating gold light from his face. That single eye shone clearer than ever with its multiple pupils; a single dash running a third of the way in the center from top to bottom, surrounded by three smaller dots on either side. Its skull was almost human, and as its maw opened, one could see the dual rows of human teeth one behind the other. Another bellowing roar came forth therefrom, low and gargling, its voice like a great and terrible war horn heralding the march of a million men. It boiled the air and shook the ground in waves dashing across the sand. The beast’s thin, humanoid frame was clad in segmented steel, colored grey and soaked in blood. Tubing and wiring could be seen dangling from its joints. From behind its back, two pairs of arms joined to a total of six, each taking distinct positions and assuming different gestures, each hellish in meaning. The first were raised skyward with open plams, and the second reached out to both sides, fingers curled save the first, second and thumb, while the third reached down, clenched in fists. The Time Crux encircled the new Great One in pieces, lending an aura to it in nigh invisible bands of carmine.

In the center of its torso lay a gem. Black and streaked with moving banners of deep scarlet. The Dom Slayer could sense it. He knew what lay at its center. The power with which Hayden had used to form this union. His eyes were fixated on it.

Then, they heard its voice, like a chorus of a hundred men, calling out to them.

“WRETCHED BETRAYER.”

“MURDEROUS COWARD.”

“GULLIBLE FOOL.”

Its head lurched back and issued forth another roar.

The airborne nodes of the Time Crux came to blinding life, exuding rays of white light.

Within those lights, stronger eyes could see a glimpse of other worlds, innumerable and diverse.

One such world was awash in grey stone. A great palace could be seen looming over it.

_________________

Papyrus clutched a club, seeing the stalactites falls from the ceiling. He called first to his group, then to all the remaining guard, admonishing them to hold as stone fell from a mile high, crushing houses and felling trees. The monsters’ nerves were quickly wearing down to their last fibers. Eyes were wide, and legs were shaking. Some of the loose rock landed within feet of them, and they would run for a bit before stopping to look around for cover.

“Hold your ground, everyone! Hold fast!” The skeleton called out, standing steady by the entrance to what was once Snowfin. “Stand fast, guardsmen!” Fear was a hard thing to mask, but he had to now. He could not break in front of the guard, even if he knew very well what was on their doorstep. They all knew.

They could all hear it, bellowing and wailing, all the way from new home.



“Mettaton! What’s going on?!”

The automaton stared in terror at the screen in front of him, blithe to Alphys’ panicked voice.

The demons were braying all the louder in a feral, yet coordinated cry. Simple as a single unified roar, repeated in a vile symphony of hellish voices. All that had the wherewithal to worship where facing skyward with arms raised. Lighting danced in frenzied arcs across the entire chamber, converging to a point of the ceiling that remained out of the view of any camera. The report of thunder beating the air drummed nearly in rhythm to the demonic clamor.

Alphys’ desperation peaked with Mettaton’s unresponsiveness. “METTATON!”

He rose from his seat, his rocket batteries opening from his back. “Get the children down to the bottom of the compound. I’m headed up.”

Sans shot his question out as if he didn’t already know. Perhaps he just wanted to be wrong. “Is this it?! Is it happening?!”

“It’s happening…”

Toriel was quick on the uptake. “Children, with me! We’re staying downstairs until this is over!”

“What about dad?!”

Toriel looked once more to the screen. Asgore was doing better, but not by a huge margin. Left femur stull partially fractured. Breathing labored. Most upper thoracic injuries administered to. Rotary cuff still damaged by end of clavicle and acromion.

She then saw the newborn Icon, terrible in might, unmatched in power.

How were they going to kill that thing?

That would be for the shore party to decide, for her task was protection.

“Just come with me! He is in good hands.” She did not relent as she took them by the hand to the elevator. “Alphys, will you be commandeering the Overlord System?”

“I’m already on it!” The images of New Home were swapped on screen for a picture of the nearly ruined laser defenses. “Get them downstairs! Sans, you’ve got comms”

“On it!”

The lab doors slammed shut and locked with a grating buzz once Mettaton had left. The upper compound lights went red. Alphys had put it in solitary lockdown. Absolutely no access save for the security console. Amid the muffled caterwauling, one could hear the elevator engines laboring from downstairs, the sound carrying through the walls.in a droning hum. The sound was lead on Sans’ and Alphys’ shoulders, and it kept them from so much as even breathing loudly. Minutes were hours. Sans wanted so desperately to know in detail the scene unfolding in New Home, and Alphys’ dread concerning her King and his companions drove her close to inquiring after the probe footage, yet none of them spoke.

The communication signal was facing heavy interference from whatever the new Icon was doing. The probe footage was grainy, the image barely discernible. Once it subsided, if it subsided, Sans would have to make contact. Then, depending on the party’s status, it would be up to him to decide if anyone else was going to lend aid whatever that could possibly entail at this point.

Automated mode could only do so many things for the Overlord system that manned operation could do. It was designed to track humans, not demons. Alphys shuddered trying to retrace whatever thought process birthed this machine. She shuddered all the more knowing the responsibility on her shoulders. The guard could only handle so many of them slipping through her fingers.

Climate control units in the compound now added their droning to the foreboding fanfare. Both scientist’s nerves began to fray, fiber by fiber with each tick of the clock, each repeated chant, each second leading up to the inevitable breach. Their thoughts were one and the same.

Just get it over with already.

_______________

 “Toriel, we have to help!”

“My child, you know we cannot do that!”

“Frisk, she’s right, we can’t-“

“No! Just hear me out! I have an idea. Neither of you will like it but-“

 “I already don’t like it,” Toriel’s voice was firm, and her grasp firmer as she knelt down and held frisk by the shoulders. “Whatever you’re thinking child, it’s not worth getting you killed! Listen!”

All faced toward the ceiling.  The depth of the lower compound did little to stifle the shock of pounding hooves and demoniac yells. “Do you hear that, my child? It’s not safe for you out there!”

“Frisk, she’s right, we can’t-“

“But we can stop them!”

“I’M NOT GOING TO LOSE ANOTHER CHILD!” Tears found their way through the walls of Toriel’s stem resolve. “Goodness, I’ve already been so foolish. I’ve already been so cowardly…. But child, I cannot fear you more than I fear your death.” She relented enough to let her eyes meet the child’s, and in them she could see anxious worry. Frisk’s desire to carry out this plan of hers had obviously not faded, but neither had Toriel’s desire to keep her and Asriel safe. She was not going to be moved on this.

“You need to stay here.”

Relenting as Toriel released her, she faced the prince and saw that same look on his face. Pleading and sincerely worried. Her plan would need an opportune moment to meet either of their ears.

Toriel ushered both children away from the elevator and into the same room where Hayden had briefed them all earlier that day. The same three beds and the same three sinks and the same two tables.

“I know there is not much to do here, children, but we cannot leave. Just stay here with me until this blows over.” Toriel tried her hardest to ease the fear in their eyes.

“Everything is going to be alright.”

Frisk glanced towards her pocket.

She needed to text Alphys.

_______________

His emergence had shaken the earth and torn it asunder, but now, a different rhythm could be heard, this time not from within, but from without. A stampede. The distant rumble of a hurried and feverish march.

Asgore could barely stand, but a sense of urgency lent him some temporary aid against the pain shooting through his left side. A hairline fracture persisted somewhere high in his leg. His hips felt like splintered mush, and he had to prop himself up with a trident before VEGA slung his arm over his shoulder. His eyes shot open from their agonized squint as they were met with a host unlike any he had seen before. He had seen his thousands of subjects gathered before him. He had seen the armies of mankind rally against him from afar off, but what he saw now dwarfed them all beyond description.

The horde covered what mountainsides that had not yet been steeped in ash and molten rock, running down and casting a swathe of dust to rival the plumes rising from the cinder cones that surrounded the Citadel Valley. The skies wee choked with herds of cacodemons, and lost souls who had been called, falsely promised something to possess all their own. As the rear echelons on the mountains continued their descent, the vanguard appeared over the near hill, and many had already come onto the citadel grounds, quickly closing in: an innumerable horde of imps and Knights, led by Barons and trailed by Summoners. What Revenants remained, around thirty or so in number, could be seen hovering overhead, near the front. The sound of their stampede was soon overcome by that of their bellowing. Loud. Predatory. Rapacious, and merciless.

They eventually came to a halt within a stone’s throw of the shore party.

The Doom Slayer stood before them. Unfazed. Unyielding.

The abominable Icon opened its mouth.

“KNEEL BEFORE ME!”

The Doom Slayer did not budge

The beast let out an impatient growl.

“MINE IS THE POWER TO DESTROY THAT WORLD OR SPARE IT. MINE IS THE POWER TO SEND THE HORDE UPON YOU, OR TO CALL THEM OFF FROM FEASTING ON YOUR FLESH. KNEEL TO ME!”

The Scourge of Hell stepped forward, his contemptuous scowl aimed steadfastly at the new Icon. His companions remained silent, unsure of what he would do, unsure of what they themselves would do?

Three. Four. Five steps, and he halted

One last command from the petulant creature. “NOW KNEEL!”

The Hell Walker snarled in disgust.

Then he arched his head back.

He scrunched his face and snorted

“SNNRRRK”

He lurched his head forward

“PTOOOH!”

And he spat at him.

It landed a few feet in front of him, and every demon within eyeshot went silent and stared at it. All of Hell shut its mouth and remained still. Everything, from the stilled wind, to the ebbing lava floes stopped dead in its tracks. The Icon was utterly still, and its heavy, guttural breathing had stopped outright, its eye fixated on that wet little spot of ground.



The chanting in the underground had stopped. Every Demon in New home was as stunned as their brethren in Hell.

Sans stared blankly at the screen, and at the raging man in green armor clenching his fists. Alphys had not seen it, but she felt the quivering ground come to a dreadful standstill.



Toriel and the Children held their breath, all looking upward toward a spectacle they could not see. Only the sound of the room’s climate control unit creaking itself to life could be heard



Asgore and VEGA had no words.

Neither did the Icon.

“GRROOOOOOOAAAAAAAHHHHHH!”

His infuriated roar sent to horde forth. A billion

murderous maws gnashing at their prey. On they ran to the defiant Doom Slayer, emboldened and surprisingly unafraid.



Alphys and Sans jumped as the roaring began anew in the chasm. Frisk found a frightened Asriel clinging to her, and Toriel huddling over them.

They heard stone cracking.

The sight on Alphys’ screen took a foreboding turn. A single shadow cast itself over the doorway into New Home in an instant.

About three seconds more, and the entire doorway, and a great swathe of wall half a mile wide crumbled and fell.

It had begun.