A/N:
I said new chapter soon. Two weeks is pretty soon right?
Right..?
Enjoy the chapter.
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Viewing: The Judge and The Gatekeeper
"Marrow Sign - The Bone Zone!"
He never quite knew what the card was truly capable of. On the illustration, it showed a whirlpool of bones that were capable of whipping up a tornado, but it never demonstrated such power in the spar with Marisa.
Of course, he was holding back quite a bit, but was it really that much of a difference maker?
'If that's the case,' sans thought, 'What if I just let it do what it wants?'
This time, when he called the name, he didn't resist and let it take as much mana as it wanted.
"No more pulling punches."
When he was satisfied, he pulled the metaphorical trigger, and his arm blew back from the recoil.
...
..
.
A bone flew at subsonic speeds, drawing a curved trajectory towards Meiling. Having seen the whole process, she prepared to dodge, but was entirely taken back by the speed of the projectile.
Narrowly avoiding a blow to the head, Meiling watched in confusion, and then horror as the bone stopped mid air, and began to glow, a universal sign of an imminent explosion.
Leaping as far back as she could manage in that instant, Meiling grit her teeth as she realized that it was nowhere near enough
"Haiyaa, Why can't it ever be easy..."
Lamenting her misfortune, Meiling braced herself.
The brightly shining projectile glimmered briefly before combusting into a true storm of bones.
A sight only visible on the cloudiest, angriest days of the year, brought about by nature's fury, and touched by Deaths embrace.
A tornado of bones swept across the battle field, engulfing Meiling in its influence. As she felt herself being pulled in, she barely had time to consider her next move before the onslaught began.
She felt a bone slam into her side at full force. Wincing at the pain, Meiling was knocked off her guard, leaving her open for another attack. She just barely raised her arms to deflect a bone to the face
However, Meiling still flinched as she saw the deep blue bruise forming on her arm. Her hastily formed guard had done its job, but it still had flaws.
"Do I need to try harder...?"
At this rate, she would be continuously pummeled by the spell card until the end of the fight. There was no better time to lock in.
Facing danger with a confident expression, Meiling flared her rainbow aura and braved the storm.
Leaning backwards, she let a bone pass through where her head just was, and looked for her target.
Even seeing was difficult however, as the wind kicked up by the immense speed of the projectiles had rendered visibility a privilege.
As the bones fell about as rapidly as rain. Meiling twisted her body in various ways to avoid the flying bullets, jumping from pillar to pillar, while shooting down ones she couldn't dodge.
But whenever she failed to counter a bullet with her own, it would leave a nasty bruise on her.
Even still, her eyes flittered across the battle field looking for any trace of blue, all the while being completely battered.
But something was wrong.
There were no attacks besides the Bone Zone, and no external mana signatures appeared.
It was too quiet.
Were any large attacks being charged up, she would be aware of it. But it was radio silent.
Almost as if it were just her here.
Meiling scowled.
"Hey! When are you gonna stop playing around like this! Come out and fight properly!"
Feeling fed up with the game of hide and seek, she called out for him directly.
Meiling knew. He was here somewhere, just watching her struggle. He could attack her while she was distracted and end it, but instead he opted to do nothing.
He was playing with her.
And that triggered her beyond words.
Meilings aura burst out in all directions, and she angrily whipped out a card from her breast pocket.
It was a white card with a colorful rainbow border. On its front face was an illustration of a neon cyclone of bullets, shredding everything in its path.
With a mighty shout, Meiling called it's name.
"Color Sign - Extreme Color Typhoon!"
Meilings frustration and exhaustion had reached its peak, resulting in a storm of her own.
A second vortex appeared within the first, destroying it from the inside out. The bullets strayed in every direction in a desperate attempt to hit something, anything.
It didn't take long before all the bones were gone, but Meiling didn't stop. Not until she saw his smiling mug.
...
..
.
"Oh, there she is. But what is she yelling about?"
On the other side, sans was watching from the sky while waiting for his mana to regenerate, a confused look on his face.
'I was just hiding to catch my breath, but it seems like she misunderstood something?'
The spell card left him exhausted. Sweat dripped down his face, and he was hunched over, breathing hard.
Looking at the rampaging Typhoon ripping through his attack, he for some reason felt like there was negative emotions behind it. Looking at her face only confirmed it.
'Yeah, she's definitely mad.'
He had no idea why, but it would make his plan easier.
While he was waiting, he thought up a way to end the fight in one clean shot. It would be risky, but for someone as fast and durable as Meiling, he had to lure her into a trap.
Looking at her figure from behind, he began to gather magic to get her attention.
It worked flawlessly as she quickly spun around to make eye contact.
Staring into those turquoise eyes that had contorted into anger, a different bead of sweat dripped down his face.
...
..
.
As Meiling made eye contact with sans, The spell card assault had stopped. Having used three cost heavy spell cards in this fight, She was completely out of Qi.
Out of Qi, but not out of options.
As a cool blue aura flowed out from her, which sans recognized as mana, he realized with a horrified face that she wasn't even empowered with magic.
In other words, earlier was all natural strength.
Meiling squatted down just as she had near the beginning of this fight. Her body was tattered and bruised, her Qi was gone, and she had to resort to an energy she barely knew how to use beyond physical strength enhancement.
An energy she didn't have much of either.
All in all, she was running on fumes.
But she had a job to do.
She was also pissed.
So with incredible force, Meiling pushed off the ground, and blasted forward like a bullet from the barrel of a gun.
Sans, who was waiting for it, launched multiple massive bones towards her to slow her down.
In an instant, the gatekeeper appeared before the bone columns and winded back a fist.
Releasing her fury in a violent manner, the first bone shattered from head to toe.
Flying through the debris, the second bone greeted her on the other side.
Flipping into position, she released a devastating axe kick which, true to its name, split the attack straight down the middle.
'good lord...' the thought of getting hit by such a fist sent a shiver down sans' spine.
In this manner, she rapidly advanced through the bullets like an un-abiding storm.
Advance forward, get stopped by an attack, crush it, repeat. In the end, it only took around fifteen seconds to end up right in front of Sans.
But that was all the time he needed.
When she finally saw his face up close, he smiled, then vanished.
He had not been sitting there doing nothing, as Meiling would soon find out.
VRRRRR
For when the skeleton disappeared, behind him was a massive dragon skull, twice the size of the one he came in on.
And in its maw was a fully charged orb of energy.
"Ah.."
Meiling belatedly realized what had happened.
She had been short sighted. She failed to recognize the extra mana signature, mistaking it for sans himself. In her anger, she played right into his trap.
Again.
"Damnit."
BWOOOOAAAAAAAA
######################
Sans flexed his hand as he felt the influence of the spell card duel fade away.
Looking down at the singed gatekeeper, he felt a little bad.
She was currently sitting in a crater created from the blast, listlessly drawing shapes in the dirt.
The bone jungle sans had created was slowly crumbling to dust, and the red brick road was completly ruined.
Mostly thanks to him.
"Ahh... Who am I kidding... Nobody calls me the dragon warrior, im a fraud..."
'Right, her.'
Feeling that the sight was a little too pathetic, sans spoke up.
"Nah, I don't think you're a fraud pal. In fact you're the strongest person I've fought yet."
Sighing, Meiling looked down with sad eyes.
"You don't need to comfort and lie to me like a child. I'll get over this loss eventually."
Getting whiplash from what she said compared to how she looked (she's about to cry), sans shrugged.
"Comfort or not, the fact that you were my hardest battle yet remains a fact."
At least in this world.
Meiling flinched, perhaps sensing the sincerity in the statement.
"Infact, multiple times during the duel, I thought I would die to your strength, I felt it in my 'bones'. I'm 'dead' serious."
She looked towards him as he turned and walked to the gate.
"Don't beat yourself up over my 'Marrow' victory. There's always next time."
Reaching the gate, he pushed it, only to find it locked.
As sans was about to teleport through, he heard a sound.
"Thanks..."
Looking back with a grin, he replied.
"Don't sweat it. Cya Hong Meiling."
And he disappeared from view.
Looking at where the man once stood, Meiling felt a little glad he was gone, otherwise she would have cried in front of him.
Though after those last words, she felt a little less like crying.
"'theres always next time'... He's right, Just one loss isn't much in the grand scheme of things!"
Meiling stood up.
"Every legend has their ups and downs, this is just one of them! The difference between a legend and a loser is the ability to stand back up!"
Reaching her hand to the sky, Meiling clenched her fist. Her clothes were tattered and her Qi reserves were empty, but she would rise again.
"And when I do, the next opponent will face shattering defeat!"
She said, before immediately collapsing to her knees, having succumbed to her injuries.
"Maybe the next opponent could be put off for tomorrow. Or maybe a couple of days."
Meiling sat herself down at the gate entrance and sighed.
"Ah right, someone got through. Sakuya will have my ass for this."
Meiling looked up.
"Oh well."
And promptly fell asleep within 2 seconds of closing her eyes. An insane achievement that dwarves even sans' record of 25 seconds.
Due to this, she failed to notice another intruder fly in only two minutes later.
Truly, a master at work.
=======================
Viewing: The Scarlet Devil
"That's what's happened Mistress."
A silver haired maid had just finished her report to the head of the house. The vampiric master who held control over the fates of all the beings under her banner
Remila Scarlet.
Sitting on a massive elaborate throne in the center of a large room was a small frail looking girl.
He platinum colored hair swayed gently beneath the pink mob cap she wore.
Red ribbons adorned her rather simple pink dress, with a particularly large one behind her waist.
Of course this look doesn't quite scream vampire, but that's what the massive bat wings are for.
"Meiling has lost?"
"Yes mistress."
"Hmm..." The vampire cups her cheek. This was a concerning development.
Meiling was the first line of defense, while she's down, others could get into the mansion easily.
Another concern was the intruder. According to Sakuya, they had done it in a little under fifteen minutes, seemingly undamaged too.
Meiling was the gatekeeper for a reason, she has quite the strength, so if someone defeats her, it's easy to tell how strong they are based on how long it took. Fifteen minutes indicates that this is no ordinary intruder.
And if they beat Meiling without much trouble, patchouli probably wouldn't fare much better. She always was lacking in stamina.
Thinking about it briefly, she came to a decision.
"Sakuya, be a dear and go stop them would you?"
Sakuya immediately bowed before responding.
"I was merely awaiting your orders mistress. Your will shall be fulfilled.*
At that moment, Remilia heard a click sound, and time began to slow.
When she came to, Sakuya was gone, and Remilia sat in the room alone.
Confirming no other presence, she finally sighed and her tense exterior melted away.
Slouching in her chair, she sighed while scratching her head.
"That girl is too devoted."
The first thing she did when Sakuya was away was complain about her.
"Really, seeing her so serious made me tense up subconsciously."
Remilia had picked her up as a child and raised her to be a maid, but why did she suddenly turn into a devotee halfway through?
Sure, she played up her authority and personality to make sure she stayed loyal, but surely she didn't over do it right? So what the hell happened?
Well, she's damn good at her job though.
Shaking her head, Remilia focused her thoughts on other things, like the scarlet mist.
'Damnit, the Scarlet mist...'
Remilia had asked patchouli to come up with a way to introduce the SDM (Scarlet Devil Mansion) to Gensokyo.
And the crazy hoot decided to release the scarlet mist into the world.
'I know I said I wanted to do something big, something that would put us on the map, but what the hell? Wouldn't this make us a target?'
Well, its certainly attracting attention, which is what she wanted, but now someone is rampaging through through her mansion.
It wasn't quite what she was going for, but it'd have to do.
"Speaking of intruders..."
A white haired man wearing odd clothing. An outsider perhaps? Last she checked, white hair was only amongst the elderly in the outside.
Remilia thought over these details briefly before focusing on the actually important detail.
Bone magic.
Not necromancy, but the summoning and manipulation of bones themselves.
At this, a distant memory played in the girls mind. A time of magic. A time of war.
Long ago, before humanity knew what lied beyond the ocean, the world that was Europe was ruled by two races. Humans and Monsters.
"Hmhm..."
One day, war broke out between the two races. Both sides fired incredible magic at each other.
"Huhuhu..."
However, some of the most memorable magic she saw during those times came from skeletons who could summon structures made from bones and manipulate the souls of others.
"Hahahahaha!!"
She was actually quite young at the time, so she didn't actively participate in the battle due to being weaker than she is now.
But because of that, she escaped the fate of being sealed along with the rest of the monsters.
"But to think, one of THEM escaped★!
This, this is worth looking at!"
The reason she let that 'more knowledge than common sense' magician do what she wanted was for the excitement it may bring.
But this far exceeded her expectations.
"That magic... Seeing it again would be exciting! Sakuya, don't hurt him too much★!"
As she laughed to herself in the wide chamber, she began to truly fit the bill of the word.
Vampire.
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A/N:
oh shit? did y'all expect this?
I remembered vampires were a western myth, which fits well into this world where Undertale takes place in Europe.
Remilia is NOT an Undertale monster, although that would be very interesting. I decided she was simply present for the war due to the sheer scale of it.
there's Undertale monsters, and then European myths. the difference being one is made of magic, and the other is made of fear. Remilia is the latter.
Thing is, humans can't tell the difference because both are scary as hell, so they exterminated them equally.
Hope that clears things up. 🙏
Peace.