An Underswap AU: A Tale of Seven Book 1

Entry # 37: It's Raining Somewhere Else. . . Outside the Cage

Shyren flexes in!

"Here we go again." Gerard grumbled as the Encounter Menu appeared before them.

After Chara's rather meaningful conversation with the Moldsmals via body language ("I can never unsee that." Alice had mumbled when the battle ended), they stumbled upon a mermaid monster flexing her manly biceps.

The kids pressed ACT and then *Check, as usual.

*SHYREN 7 ATK 2 DEF
*This mermaid remains undefeated in arm wrestling

"I can see that." Jaede said, eying the mermaid's muscular arms.

"Ew." Alice cringed at the sight of Shyren's sweaty armpits. For a female, her hygiene is odious. Even Saturn and Justin are quite disgusted, though the former tried to keep her visage as neutral as possible.

The children dodged a queue of bullets shaped like flexing arms. They were quite easy to avoid, and their dodging abilities have improved since the time Alphys nearly skewered them with a bunch of axes.

Alice moved her palm to *Shoo the mermaid away. However, Gerard and Chara beat her to the ACT options and slammed their fists on the *Flex button, entering a flexing competition with Shyren. Viorel and Jaede cheered for the two, while the rest spectated awkwardly at the scene before them.

Moments later, Shyren flexes herself out of the room, ending the battle.

"Well, that was interesting." Saturn remarked.

The group resumed their journey, eventually reaching another stone tablet engraved with ancient glyphs.

"The power to take their souls. This is the power that the humans feared." Alice read.

"Must be the continuation of the other inscriptions earlier." Jaede muttered.

The kids exited the room, arriving at another forked path beside a small waterfall. The route straight ahead contains the rest of the glyphs, while other leads to a room hiding some sort of "great treasure".

Justin brings out one gold coin. "Heads for straight ahead, tails for the northern path." He tosses it in the air and catches it with his left hand. The children stared at the result.

"It's tails." Chara pointed out.

"To the treasure!" Gerard cheered, dashing ahead of his companions.

"Oi! Hold your horses!" Justin reprimanded, running after the orange head. The rest of their siblings followed right behind him.

They arrived at a small chamber containing a piano with a music sheet sitting on the left corner and another stone tablet nailed on the right wall. While the others ogled at the instrument, Alice and Saturn approached the stone tablet.

"A haunting song echoes down the corridor. . . Won't you play along?" Alice read.

Chara sat on the chair in front of the piano and began to play a lovely melody. Viorel could've sworn that he heard it before, but he can't exactly recall when. And where.

He suddenly gained a strong urge to go down the next path to search for something. What that something was? The blunette's brows furrowed. . . . His Theme.

He frowned even further. Who's "He"?

A blurry image surfaced in his head, splattered in hues of black, blue, grey and scarlet. "A statue. . . under an umbrella?" Viorel thought. He nearly jumped a foot in the air when his siblings started clapping.