Undertale: Tales from the Dreemurr Family

Reckless Rivalry: Part 1

(Kirin's POV)

Omega's training androids all surrounded me, their weapons trained on me. I counted 10—no, 11—locking in on me. I aimed at one that looked like it would fire its heat ray on me in seconds, concentrating my power. As I did so, a blazing ball of cobalt-colored hellfire formed around my clenched fist, its fiery tongues licking the air.

"Inferno Comet!" I called out, sending the searing projectile racing towards the droid. The fireball hit its mark, exploding upon impact. Sparks flew as the droid was blasted into scrap metal. Two more droids that were nearby were caught in the blast, and although they weren't blown to bits, the intense heat given off by the fireball caused their systems to overheat and shut down. Not wasting time, I summoned my psionic scythe, slashing twice in rapid succession, each slash sending out a crescent-shaped shockwave that sliced the mechanical foes in half.

As I was attacking, three more were coming up behind me, and two more had rushed to where the piles of scrap were, surrounding me. Drawing on my fury, my body flared up with hellfire, my highlights and eyes taking on a deep cobalt glow. With a cry of the attack's name, I let loose a shockwave of hellfire all around me, knocking back my foes. That spell was Inferno Flare. I had already sustained some damage earlier on, so the attack had gained more power than usual.

The remaining androids had split up, but I had a secret weapon. One that Omega had never taught me. Summoning my power, I summoned a pair of hellfire projectiles on my forearms that looked like oblong fireballs, but quickly took on the form of rockets—or, more accurately, missiles.

"Twin! Hellfire! Missiles!" I called out, and let the missiles loose. They tracked down the android groups, each aiming at one group. The bots couldn't evade the missiles, and before long, they, too, were fit only for the junkyard.

I stood in the center of the field, panting. I turned to see Omega and Crystal looking at me, my twin sister with an unreadable expression, and Omega with pride.

"I have no memory of teaching you that attack," Omega commented, referring to Twin Hellfire Missiles. "Did you come up with that yourself?"

When I nodded, Crystal replied, "Of course you would choose that name. It was a pretty intense sounding name."

"The name wasn't entirely fabricated by me," I said. "That particular attack was named for the real-life Hellfire Missile, an anti-tank missile used in the military. Originally designed to be a HELicopter Launched FIRE-and-forget-it Missile, the name was shortened to Hellfire Missile to make its name less cumbersome, more threatening, and more descriptively accurate. Carried by military aircraft, most notably the Apache 64 helicopter, the Hellfire Missile was designed to burn right through the armor of enemy tanks."

"Yikes," Crystal said, grimacing. "Pretty terrifying."

"Air-to-ground anti-tank missiles are greatly effective because, although the fronts of tanks are heavily armored, the tops of tanks are less armored, making them susceptible to aerial attacks. But regarding the attack move I used," I said, changing topic, "I can't wait to show this off to Asriel in our next sparring match."

"So... are going to challenge him already?" Crystal asked. "I can tell you've definitely become stronger. Maybe this time, you'll actually have a fighting—"

"It's not enough."

Crystal was stunned by my words. "Wait... What do you mean?"

"I need more power, more strength, to defeat Asriel in battle. If I couldn't stand a chance against Aria, how could I stand a chance against Asriel?" I still remembered the humiliating sting of defeat from when I challenged Asriel's little sister to a sparring match. It had ended poorly for me, as Aria was able to withstand everything I threw at her, and overpowered me in a matter of minutes, all without transforming into her Goddess of Hyperdeath form. "I have to become stronger. I need more power."

Crystal looked at me with concern. "You've been training too hard lately. It's not a good idea to push yourself to your limits—"

"I've pushed my limits before," I snapped, my psionic power flaring with anger.

"Yeah, but not like this," Crystal said, meeting my burning gaze. "I'm starting to think that this rivalry with Asriel's becoming an obsession."

"It's not an obsession!" I yelled. Crystal maintained her gaze, but I could tell she was trying to not flinch. Realizing that my words were harsher than I intended, I took a deep breath—in through the nose, out through the mouth—before saying, "I'm sorry, Crystal. I... I don't know what came over me." I tuned to Omega. The Dark Wolf was staring coldly at me.

"What's our next exercise? I'm looking forward to cranking up the difficulty."

"Crystal's right, Kirin." Omega's words were anything but what I expected.

"You're kidding me," I said, struggling to maintain my temper.

"You've pushed yourself enough for a while. Until you learn to moderate your training, at least to some degree, and stop pushing yourself to the red zone, our training together is on pause."

The words stunned me. He couldn't be serious. Since when had he cared about another's well-being; Omega, who was Death incarnate? "Please don't make these kind of jokes—"

"Like you, Kirin," Omega interrupted, his pale-green eyes locked on me, "I'm not known for having a sense of humor."

"Fine," I said. "I'll stop pushing myself so hard."

Crystal put her hand onto my shoulder. "C'mon, bro. Let's go home."

(Chara's POV, an indeterminate amount of time later)

Several times, I'd reached out to Crystal asking her if she and Kirin wanted to hang out. Crystal was always game, but Kirin seemed to always be busy during those times. One day he'd been helping out as a volunteer for a disaster relief program, which shocked me, but, according to Crystal, would probably fit his profile, as he had a heart of gold. Another day, he had a dentist appointment, which we also believed. Crystal hadn't reported anything unusual going on about him, and considered the fact that he was trying to keep his mind off the fact that Omega refused to train him any further until he could stop overexerting himself. This day, Crystal, Kris, Aria, Frisk, and I were playing Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. It was a free-for-all stock battle, and I was on a mean streak.

"Kirin would've been a good opponent for you, were he here instead of the library," Crystal commented. She'd been knocked out early in the match, as she was trying out Pichu, while I was playing as Ganondorf. Apparently, Kirin was at the Librarby reading up on calculus in preparation for college. Asriel and Noelle were on a date, Asgore and Toriel were at a meeting with the mayor of Ebbot City, while Develyn was busy training with Undyne. The rest of us were home alone.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang, and Crystal rushed to open it. There were Asriel and Noelle, holding peppermint iced mochas in their hands, laughing and greeting Crystal.

"How's Kirin doing?" Noelle asked.

"He's at the library—the one with the incorrect sign—studying calculus. Good for his brain, but math isn't my strong suit."

The goat-and-deer couple stopped laughing. "That's strange," Noelle asked. "Why would he tell you that?"

"Because he'd be doing that," Crystal said simply. "Why are you questioning it?"

"Crystal," Asriel said, "we were just there. Neither Noelle and I saw him anywhere in the library."

Crystal startled a bit. "But... he told me that he would be there! There's no reason to believe that he told me that if he was... doing..." The white dragon's voice trailed off, as if realizing one thing: Kirin had lied to her. Possibly several times.

"We have to find him!" Crystal cried, panicked. "What if he's gotten himself into trouble?" We need to find him quickly!"

All of us shut down the Switch and raced out the door, Frisk texting Asgore and Toriel, while Crystal reached out to her parents. As soon as we were outside, we were hastily split into pairs: Asriel and Crystal, Frisk and Kris, Noelle, Aria and me. Okay, that was technically two pairs and a group of three. All of us soon split off, with my group checking the suburban areas, Frisk and Kris rushing towards downtown, and Asriel and Crystal teleporting to Ebbot Forest.

To be continued...