VOXISTALE: Novel Edition

Chapter 106

A ravine sat between them and a distant chute made of stone, barely noticeable, sticking out of the trees on the other side. The Kingdom of Hopes. It was so close now, but this rip in the earth seemed to stretch on for as far as the eye could see in either direction. The simplest path would be climbing down the ravine, then back up it to the other side. There was only one issue: there were people staring up at them from the ravine, wearing ski masks, holding automatic weapons.

Undyne narrowed her eye at the sight before exchanging a glance with Asgore. His old, sad eyes looked even more sad than usual in that moment. "Do they know where we're headed?" Undyne asked.

"I'm not sure," Asgore began, but Gerson stepped between them, glaring down at the sight before letting out a chuckle.

"Nah, they're clueless. If they knew, they'd have been waiting there."

"I concur," Mosu nodded from behind them. "I can't recall any records of the kingdom in our databases."

"Then the Kingdom of Hopes remains our destination," Asgore nodded. "We'll just need to find a way around the ravine."

"Sorry, but your journey ends here." All heads whipped about to see a dark-skinned girl standing several meters on their side of the cliff ledge, with black hair styled into thick dreadlocks, and deep, black-set eyes. Her torso was adorned with a maroon bomber jacket, her accent thick with something Undyne couldn't recognize, though she assumed it to be of an American sort. She seemed to be alone, but that was doubtful. Undyne's eye flitted about the surrounding trees, but she couldn't see anybody. Not right away, at least.

"Could say the same to you," Undyne fired back, moving from her place beside Gerson toward the girl, cocking her head slightly to the side. She glanced back at Asgore. "Keep everyone moving. I'll deal with this one."

The human seemed humored by this as she raised a brow, watching coolly as most of the monsters disregarded her, following Asgore's lead away. She looked down into the ravine, and gave a nod. How those down there saw that nudge of her head was anyone's guess, but they began to walk along the ravine, keeping up with the group.

Or they would have had a wall of spears stretching nearly twenty feet into the air not shot out of the ground in front of them, not going unnoticed by the girl, whose amusement of the situation seemed to lessen. "Cute. You're the one that gave Raptor and Warmth a run for their money, ain't ya?"

"And you're nobody special," Undyne replied, narrowing her eyes as the group began to distance themselves from the scene.

"Danica's the name," the human stated, "after we're finished here, everyone'll know me."

Almost immediately, a spear slammed into her cheek, knocking her a pace back. Danica stumbled to a stop, a light cut on her cheek. She'd nearly tumbled off into the ravine. "Keep dreaming, kid. I'm way out of your league."

Danica scowled at this, wiping the small amount of blood drooling from her wound. "Maybe," she replied. "Maybe not."

She whipped a sidearm out from behind her back, firing three shots at Undyne, who slid out of the way of the bullets just in time to avoid getting a serious injury as Danica took off into the trees. Undyne tossed her spear after the girl, lodging it into the side of a trunk before it faded.

Realizing she was a sitting duck, Undyne summoned another spear and readied herself to dodge again, risking a glance into the ravine to find the group below trying to climb along the sides to get around her spears. She summoned a few more along the wall to completely cut off their path, climbing or no climbing.

There it was: the crack of a twig underfoot. Noise enough for Undyne to dive forward as three more gunshots rang out. None hit their mark. Her eye swiveled to find Danica retreating back into the cover of the thick brush.