Read Part 4 first: Part 4 of UT/AA Crossover
Part 6: Part 6 of my UT/AA Crossover
Swarm
Location unknown, Seventh Sea
So they are going to send troops to go look for survivors? Very well. My undead will make short work of magicless soldiers. You are quite helpful, Ãîëóðêòèìå , and you may rest assured I will reward you once this world is mine.
First Sea
The fleet headed towards the A.G. outpost first. There, they found nothing but rubble—not a single body. They scoured the other islands. They managed to find a few survivors here and there, but no large groups. They went to Savaria, the largest island, last. The city center had mostly been destroyed, but they heard some sounds from Kairo, offshore.
They headed there, and went in. Immediately, a massive wave of Undead appeared out of nowhere. Averill, who’d gone with the search party, cursed. He summoned a beam of light that felled several Undead. The rest he demolished with a barrage of orbs—but not before several of his men were killed and became Undead, but were quickly felled.
“Alright, that did not go well.” he said.
“Sir, there might be actual survivors on other floors…” One of the men mentioned.
They climbed up, Averill in the lead. They checked, but there was no one else.
They returned to the ship and reported their findings to Valencia. The survivors were already being treated, having been escorted back by Roran.
Second Sea
Like the other fleet, they headed towards Freedom Lookout first. Here, though, they were immediately swarmed by Undead soldiers. John Thorne summoned a dark rift that felled most of them, and Trigno took the rest down. This time they suffered no losses, since they were prepared (Valencia had radioed them).
The rest of the sea was uneventful, as they picked up survivors here and there and returned to the ship.
Location unknown, Seventh Sea
So it’s not just soldiers, then. Very well then. Ãîëóðêòèìå , why did you not inform me of this?
You tremble in the face of Durza’s quiet anger.
“I—I didn’t—”
No matter. I’ll just send the gods.
Third Sea
They headed for the outpost to find nothing—the island had been destroyed. They traveled around, picking up survivors—there were many hiding in a cave near Alalea—and reached Sabura. They searched the main island before Samuel, Jace, and Arus cautiously entered the Pyramids of Azten.
Once again, a swarm of Undead appeared. But this time, they were led by Poseidon.
Arus was the first person to notice. “That’s Lord Poseidon! The Grand Admiral said it was just normal Undead—Durza must have changed his tactics here.”
Though it was quite hard, they had no losses (only the three of them had gone in) and they managed to defeat Poseidon, this time permanently. They went deeper in, and actually found some trembling citizens and guards in the final chamber.
They reported to the Grand Admiral that Durza had sent Poseidon and the Fourth Sea team had better be careful, to which she replied that it was good that they were searching the Seas one by one.
Fourth Sea
The ships pulled into the usually-vibrant port of Genisi, but now there was no one, not that they expected anyone. They searched the city, and like the other seas, an Undead mob attacked, led this time by Apollo, though they defeated him. However, they had losses this time, as the scouts had been with them at the time. They went around the other islands in the Sea, explaining the situation and evacuating the citizens.
A.G. Headquarters
“Alright, we’ve managed to evacuate everyone.” The team leaders reported to Valencia.
“Good. John, will your Sea fit the Fourth Sea evacuees?”
He nodded. “I should probably take some of the stronger men and go back to patrol it, or else the Dark Wizard will attack.”
“That’s true. Alright, who are you taking?”
“Averill, Clark (Aaron’s dad), Roran, Arus, and Argestes.”
“Very well.”
They set off, along with the evacuees from the Fourth Sea.
Prophet
He led the way into the mysterious room. As soon as he stepped in, he trembled despite himself. He could sense a menacing presence nearby. He turned to warn Chara and Asriel, but it was too late. They stepped into the room and the door simply vanished behind them.
Aaron groaned. “This is totally my fault.”
Chara nodded. “Yep!”
“Well… now what?” Asriel asked.
“Now we fight. Because there’s something in this place, and it’s not friendly.” Aaron said grimly.
Chara and Asriel summoned their weapons.
A voice suddenly echoed all around. “Hehe…no need for those. After all, I just want to talk…hehehe!”
Aaron cursed. “Who’s there?” he shouted.
“Hehe…that doesn’t matter. Now…put those little things down or I’ll just take them…” The voice cut like ice into their skin, chilling them to the bone.
“Tell us who you are and what you want and we’ll put them down.” Aaron said firmly.
Chara protested. “But—”
Aaron silenced her. “Let me do the talking here.”
The voice echoed out again. “Who am I? That doesn’t matter. What do I want? Hehe…I want your souls! Hehehehe!”
A black wind swept around them, knocking everyone but Aaron off their feet.
He tried to sense where the person—if it even was a person—was. He managed to sense something that wasn’t his companions.
Fire swirled around the location he was sensing it from. And a figure came into view.
A creature with horns like that of a deer, standing on two hooves. Its body looked wrong, somehow—dark. And this creature was the thing laughing.
Chara and Asriel cried out in surprise. “What is that thing?!?”
It laughed. “No harm in telling dead people, I suppose…”
“What? We’re not dead!” Chara interrupted.
The creature kept talking. “I was a monster, long ago. Until I was banished into this place. Now I await people like you, who stumble upon it. No one leaves here, and no one kills me. Therefore you are already dead.”
Aaron summoned a fireball and fired it at the creature, knocking it backwards. “There’s always a first…whatever you are!”
It screamed and charged at him with its claws (it has hooves for feet and claws for hands; look up wendigo d&d for more info). Asriel shot a barrage of orbs that staggered the creature but didn’t do much.
It changed its focus to Asriel and grabbed him. Asriel froze in place, literally, unable to move away. Chara slashing at it was the only thing that saved Asriel from a painful death.
The creature screamed again. Aaron leapt at it, surrounding the blade of his naginata with Inferno-flame. It cut deeply into the creature and it screamed once again, differently this time—higher, sharper.
“Very well. You have bested me.” it said. “Once, I was known as the Prophet. And I have not lost my gift. So… you, stranger, you will succeed but fail at the same time. You, Prince, your death will be your greatest achievement. And you, Princess, you will become weaker, but you will save someone very close to you, and make them stronger.”
“My death will be my greatest achievement?” Asriel asked, disbelievingly.
“You will soon see what I mean.”
“How can I succeed and fail at the same time?” Aaron asked.
“Ah…well…that, I will not answer.” The creature spoke, almost fearful. “But a warning to you, stranger…there is a person who sees all that you do. One whose name is in the ancient language. He spies for your greatest enemy. You are observed every moment. But…whether or not he reports them is another question. He has goals of his own, you see, and if he reports everything your story may end too early for him. I believe he writes down all that he sees for others to read, treating it as a story of his own.”
Aaron grimaced. A spy…that could make things harder.
“How much time left do I have before…it’s too late to save my parents?” he asked.
“Longer than you think you have. Weeks, perhaps, even months.” It seemed to be fading. “My time runs short. Remember what I have told all of you!”
It vanished. The light suddenly became much brighter, and as they looked around, they realized that they were back in the Ruins.
Chara was the first to speak. “That was…scary. And weird. But mostly scary.”
“Yeah. The prophecies…we should probably make a note of them once we’re back home.” Aaron said. “Are you two okay with going back…like…now?”
“Okay, let’s go!”
They began to hurry back to New Home, only to see Undyne and Toriel standing near the entrance to Snowdin Forest, faces grave as they discussed something.
It was only then that Aaron thought to check the time on his phone.
He gaped. “We were gone for…five days.” He showed it to the others.
Undyne glanced his way, glanced away, and then her eyes widened and she looked back and stared. Toriel followed her gaze to see Chara and Aaron, unhurt; and Asriel, with holes and bloodstains on his shirt.
“My children! Are you…all right?” she asked, looking at Asriel.
“Where have you been?”
So the three explained what had happened to them. Her face grew grim.
“A creature with the power of prophecy, who used to be one of us, but was banished?”
Aaron nodded.
“You are lucky to have survived. That was the wendigo. It was banished for killing someone.”
“Aaron looked like he was doing just fine against it…” Asriel said hesitantly.
“Well, it’s good that he was with you. The two of you alone wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
Aaron blushed at the praise but then remembered something. “Um…it was kind of my fault we got into the whole mess in the first place. I was the one who noticed the door.”
Toriel reassured him. “They would probably have noticed it at some point, with or without you.”
Asriel and Chara echoed that statement.
Aaron nodded without much enthusiasm. “Well…okay.”
The five headed back to New Home to get some rest and to call off the search.
The Conqueror
The Sixth Sea
The Sixth Sea was a peaceful place, relatively unaffected by Durza because of the citizens’ confidence in their leader John Thorne’s ability to defend the Sea.
And there was plenty of room to build new homes for the evacuees. Thorne had builders working on housing immediately, and in the meantime he found temporary accommodations for them. Though some of the evacuees, especially the children, were homesick, they were all grateful for Thorne and the A.G.’s protection, especially after the attack on Genisi.
Averill, Clark, Roran, Arus, Argestes, and John led fleets to patrol the Sea and guard the more populous places. All seemed well.
But Durza was angry. Angry that all of his plans had been thwarted. And he was especially angry with the people who had killed some of his most powerful Undead.
And out of them, he knew that John Thorne and Freedrock were by far the most powerful, and would be the most dangerous if—no, when—there was war. He decided that he would go, in person, to destroy Thorne.
So when Thorne was out with the fleet, patrolling the Sea, Durza, for the first time, struck in person.
A shadow fell over the ship. John Thorne and some of the soldiers looked up to see a dark figure hovering overhead.
Then a blast tore through the ship, killing every single soldier except Thorne.
Grimly, he flew up and out of the wreckage and fired a dark blast at Durza, who dodged it with superhuman speed and fired a jet of flame at him.
He absorbed it with the Void and summoned a jagged rift in space-time that began to tear Durza apart. With a massive roar, Durza broke free and fired multiple blasts of ice at him.
Some he dodged; but others hit him and cut flesh. He collected a mass of Void and sent it flying towards Durza, who was hit and sent flying towards the ocean.
A split second before Durza would have died, he vanished.
Molten Soul
A few weeks passed, with Aaron training to improve almost daily, sometimes with Asgore, or sometimes now with Gaster. Sometimes, though, he took breaks and explored with Chara and Asriel, who were now close friends. Or he just read books.
Today was not a day that he skipped training.
He met Gaster at the arena, as usual, and began.
He opened combat by sending a barrage of blue flame at Gaster, then immediately following up by slashing his naginata into the ground, summoning a wave of fire.
Gaster blocked both with shields and created a chain of explosions, which Aaron dodged by shooting himself upwards and then countered by shooting a wave of dust by combining his Earth and Wind Magics.
Gaster shot a barrage of yellow orbs at Aaron, who blocked them with a wall of Earth.
But as soon as the wall vanished, a red blast exploded in his face and made him stab his naginata in the ground to keep from being knocked back too far.
He sliced a glowing rope in half and charged at Gaster, leaping over more explosions and blocking a massive fist with rocks long enough to get past it.
His first slash was blocked and countered with a rope that he only barely dodged by rolling beneath it. He leapt back up and attempted to slash, but was entangled by a rope.
He screamed as it flung him up into the air and swung downwards, sending him crashing onto the ground. He tried to use Wind Magic to slow himself, but that hardly helped.
Summoning all his concentration, he tried to mold the earth to give himself a softer landing.
The earth turned red and shot upwards, enveloping him in magma, melting the rope, slowing his fall.
I’m getting stronger! he thought, as he summoned a wave of his newly-mutated Magma Magic and shot it towards Gaster.
He vanished, reappeared behind Aaron, and summoned a Gaster Blaster that sent Aaron tumbling away.
Aaron recovered from the blow and fired a massive ball of Inferno-flame at Gaster, breaking his shield and engulfing him in flame.
Blue disks shot out of the flame, covered in razor-sharp blades—and Aaron’s own Inferno-flame. They exploded into bursts of light as Aaron desperately dodged them.
And then a barrage of yellow orbs shot at him even as the razor missed him by an inch and flung him back with its explosion. The orbs slammed into him, one by one, and he was forced to surrender.
Defenses
A few weeks had passed since Durza had attacked Thorne. No attacks had happened since then, in person or with Undead. Everyone was on edge, wondering when their life would be thrown into disarray.
The patrols reassured them a bit, as did the fact that Thorne had been able to make Durza retreat.
The “protectors” had been meeting to figure out a way for them to know when Durza was going to attack before it actually happened. Sensors were a good idea , but was there even such a thing as a sensor that could detect things that could move as fast as Durza?
They decided to try it—no harm in trying. But they continued meeting to figure out a better way. One of the more exotic suggestions, from Roran, was to monitor the Seventh Sea and assume that Durza would attack soon if he wasn’t there, but that had issues—namely, Durza killing whoever was monitoring, or cloaking himself to send the Seas into a panic.
Valencia could sense things around her with her Curse, but not so far away, and not things that moved too fast.
Other suggestions came in, but they didn’t seem like they would work.
Eventually, they all agreed that the meetings were just causing a lot of stress and decided to take a break from them—but not from monitoring.
Nightmares
Aaron was having nightmares. The wendigo kept appearing in his dreams, whispering in his ear: You’re running out of time. Durza will strike soon. You must find a way to get back to your world with the monsters’ army.
He hoped with all his with all his heart that it was wrong, that he had more time to figure out how to get back. But he doubted it.