The Junkyard was much larger than Glen imagined. Given that the only town near the underground was Ebott, traditionally a rather small village, the presence of so much surface garbage was quite frankly alarming.
"Then again," Glen reasoned as Asriel led her through the piles of junk, "The last dimension's Ebott looked to have gone for the Alliance's technology upgrades. Ebott might be a damn metropolis in this universe."
"'Scuse me, Miss Garamond?"
Glen shook her head. "Just talkin' to myself. Y'know, about all the garbage."
"Yeah, we get a lot of stuff from the surface here." Asriel said. "There's a lotta good stuff around here, if you don't mind gettin' a bit dirty."
"Anyone tried getting out the way the junk gets in?"
"Oh, all the time." Asriel shook his head. "Doesn't work; the barrier lets things in, but it sure won't let anything out."
Asriel too was an interesting conundrum for Glen; he appeared to be in his mid to late teens, sixteen years old at most ... at least in appearance. Bossun aged differently from most species, only growing older in appearance when in close proximity to their parents. Apparently it had something to do with the soul energy of the parent Bossun transferring to the child, allowing them to grow as the parents grew older. Glen didn't really know that much about it; in her travels, she'd only encountered a dozen or so true Bossun.
Whatever was on the surface didn't seem to be much into food waste or other consumable refuse. Probably recycled and used for power or in some sort of nightmare soylent kind of product, Glen reasoned. Still, that left plenty of technology floating, beneath, or partially submerged in the dirty water of the Junkyard. Glen had to be particulary careful; she was still just in her socks, and there were many jagged or sharp edges just waiting to take a slice at her.
Eventually, they came to a cluster of houses deep within the junkyard. For being constructed entirely out of materials scavenged from the Junkyard, the houses were surprisingly larger than Glen expected. The piles of garbage had been pushed to the outer edges while firm dirt gave the area a proper ground. There were even a few gardens bearing familiar fruits and vegetables, as well as a few that were strange to Glen's eyes.
There were a few monsters out and about. Some tended the gardens, while others were working on the outer walls surrounding the city. A few dressed similarly to Asriel were heading out into the junkyard with empty sacks slung across their backs. Everyone waved to Asriel as he led Glen to one of the bigger houses.
"Scavengers?" Glen asked curiously.
To his surprise, Asriel blushed. "Like I said, there's a lot of good stuff out there."
"Hey, I ain't lookin' down on ya. Most of the gear I made in the Rangers was made with stuff I scavenged with a good bit of duct tape and Easyweld. Shows creativity and resourcefulness. Good on all of you."
Asriel blushed, seemingly pleased by Glen's words. By that time, they were at the front door of the house. Someone had taken bits of two doors and put them together almost perfectly; only the faint reddish hue beneath the paint on the top half of the door belied its original dual nature.
Glen moved to knock, but Asriel stopped her, "It's cool; I live here."
"Oh." Glen said, surprised. "Um, you have a nice place."
"Hmm? Oh! No, sorry, this house belongs to Mister Kidd."
"Kidd?"
The front door opened to reveal a tall monster wearing a turtleneck sweater that could only be described as sleeveless; there were no armholes at all, just like the Kidd of her Universe, newly recruited to the Town Guard. This Kidd looked older, and his tail looked to have been broken and set badly at some point.
"Ah, Asriel." Mister Kidd said, his gloomy face brightening. "You've returned ... with a friend, too."
"Hey, Mister Kidd." Asriel said, unslinging the bag from his shoulder. "Good haul today; the west field's been getting a lot of new stuff the past few days."
"Good work, lad." Nodding at Glen, Mister Kidd asked, "And who might you be, skeleton miss?"
Glen was sure he was making fun of her disguise until she noticed Mister Kidd's eyes were milky white. It was highly unlikely he could make much of her out.
"Garamond." She said. "I was passing through the Junkyard when Asriel found me and showed me here."
"Ah, here to work, hmm? Plenty of that to go around. Most of the Underground benefits from our salvaging here, lass. Usable machines are worth a bit, usable books and videos even more so."
"Books and videos are worth more than computers?" Glen asked.
"They provide entertainment." Mister Kidd said. "A valuable commodity down here, especially after we've been down here for so long."
"Garamond's a scientist." Asriel said helpfully. "She studies the history of monsters."
"Indeed?" Mister Kidd said, looking at Glen appraisingly. "Well then, you've come to the right place. Come inside and take a load off."
Mister Kidd led them inside. The furniture inside the house was a mishmash of styles, some of it in surprisingly good shape considering it likely fell from the surface. The table in the kitchen was surrounded by five chairs, no two of which were the same.
Glen sank into an armchair as Asriel sat down on an old office swivel chair. Mister Kidd sat on a wooden rocker and immediately rocked back and forth. The slight creak of the chair was oddly soothing.
Asriel upended his bag on the table. Sure enough, there were quite a few books, old VHS tapes, and even a few DVDs. Glen couldn't help but smile as the sight of an anime DVD case brought to mind the Alphys of her universe, though her smile faded as the memories of her Alphys eventually brought her back to her encounter with that universe's Alphys.
Asriel left the table only to return a minute later with a small kit filled with various bits and bobs for repairing the kind of media he'd gathered: CD scratch removal, VHS tape repair, even cotten swabs and rubbing alcohol for cleaning the contacts on cartridges.
Hearing a chuckle, Glen looked at Mister Kidd to find the lizard man smiling at him. "Asriel's an old friend of the family. He was friends with my son back in the day."
"Oh, you're married?"
Mister Kidd nodded. "The Missus passed on a few years back. Fortunately, Asriel came to live here not long after. He's having parent trouble."
"Mister Kidd!" Asriel said, cheeks red beneath his white fur.
Mister Kidd chuckled. "I know, I know; you don't want to talk about it."
Glen had a pretty good idea what Asriel wasn't saying. She's known Asgore and Toriel had been married but split up some time before the monsters were freed from the Underground. Clearly, this reality was no different in that regard.
"So." Mister Kidd said, "You're studying the history of monsters, eh? A noble effort. Anything in particular your looking to find out?"
"Nothing specific." Glen said, bluff skill fully active. "I just figured someone should write it down what happened properly. Humans live such short lives, there's no telling how the truth of the war between us will be warped by the time we get out."
"True. The victors often twist the story to their favor. I often wonder about those monsters who turned against us."
"Some monsters helped the humans?" Glen said, surprised.
"It was war. Some thought it was a way to survive the slaughter. Others felt that maybe humans had a right to fear us. Whatever their purpose, we know for a fact that some of us helped the humans; after all, the barrier is magic, and humans have no magic."
"That we know of." Glen added, thinking of the Centers of Knowledge back on Vinta.
"True. Still, magical experts detected monster magic in the barrier, so we know some of us must've helped the humans. At the time, we were furious."
"You were alive during the war?" Glen said before realizing just how that sounded.
Fortunately, Mister Kidd simply laughed. "Yeah, I'm old. You don't have to sound so surprised, youngster. I was just a recruit serving with in Princess Toriel's squad at the time. The war was ... brutal. Humanity hated us dearly, and after seeing so many friends fall to them, we had precious little love for humanity. We were never sure who started the fighting; one minute tensions were high, the next we were fighting for our lives. The Princess was one hell of a fighter; most of us struggled to match strength with the humans and their weapons, but she tore through their ranks like a woman possessed."
Glen noted that Asriel had stopped repairing the tapes and was now listening intently. She said nothing, not wanting to break the spell as Mister Kidd continued. "For nearly three whole months, we fought to break the human's hold on us. They were driving us back, and at the time we were certain genocide was on their mind."
Mister Kidd shook his head sadly. "When the barrier came up, it was almost a relief; they surely could've annihilated us had they wished, yet they chose to confine us here instead. Unfortunately, the previous Queen of the Underground was killed in the final battle, leaving Toriel to take her place. Things could've been bad then; we were scared, trapped, and still so angry at the humans for driving us away. Still, over time, the anger faded and our thoughts became full of our new life down here."
"Queen Toriel promised to find a way to free us, of course. She ordered any human found wandering the Underground to be brought to Dreemurr castle. We thought her plan was to take the soul and leave to try and find a way to destroy the barrier ..." Mister Kidd let out a sigh. "That was when the talks of purging the surface world began."
"I beg your pardon?" Glen said, unwilling to believe that Toriel, sweet motherly Toriel, would set such a thing into motion.
"I know." Mister Kidd said, nodding. "Hard to believe. by that time, we'd already settled down from the war. Sure, we missed the sun, but to have our Queen suddenly advocate such a violent option was a bit startling. Fortunately, her new plan called for seven human souls; since she wasn't going to use one to go and and get more, we essentially had to wait for humans to fall down here. As you no doubt know, the odds of that were not exactly high."
"Seven souls." Glen said, frowning. "She was trying to create an artifact of seven?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"An artifact of seven." Glen paused, realizing that was an Elsewhere term, and as such Mister Kidd couldn't know about it. "Artifacts of seven are objects that gain exceptional powers when all seven are brought together. There are quite a few of them of varying power; Dragonballs, Chaos Emeralds, the seven strings of the Liariatte Mandis ... and by power, I mean wish-like power."
"The Everstar?" Asriel said.
Glen looked at him curiously. "The what?"
Asriel blushed and looked away. "Er, sorry. Please continue, Mister Kidd."
"But-"
"I don't know what her true plan was." Mister Kidd confessed. "Perhaps you're correct, and she wanted an artifact of seven. Perhaps she wanted to absorb all seven souls herself; just one soul would make a monster nearly unstoppable. Seven could make a monster practically god-like ... maybe even literally god-like."
Shaking his head, Mister Kidd said, "So that's where we are now. Personally, I find my life deeply fulfilling. I miss my wife and child, of course, but Asriel here's kind enough to visit me, and I have an important purpose. The salvage we find helps the Underground, and with the recent over-crowding problems, we need all the distraction we can get."
"Rumor has it a seventh child has fallen into the underground." Glen said.
"Eighth." Mister Kidd said, his face sad. Before Glen could ask what was wrong, the lizard monster rose from his chair.
"You can leave those, Asriel." Mister Kidd said kindly. "I heard a large amount of junk landed in the western fields just an hour ago. You probably passed some of the early scavvers heading that way on the way into town. It may be too late, but I'd like you to check it out."
"Not a problem." Asriel said, setting down the tape he'd been working on. As he rose, Glen said, "Tell you what; I'll head along with you if you don't mind."
"Sure thing.' Asriel said. "It'll be nice to have someone friendly along for a change. Besides, we'll be able to carry more together."
Mister Kidd nodded approvingly. "Very well. I could offer dinner and lodging for the night in it for the assistance."
"Much thanks." Glen said, tugging a lock of her bangs.
Each carrying a bag and Glen now equipped with an old pair of Mister Kidd's boots and an old solid wooden broom handle to poke at the piles of garbage, Dreamer and Dreemurr left Mister Kidd's house. They walked in silence out of the village and were soon once again wandering the piles of human refuse.
Once they were well away from the village, Asriel said, "Thank you for not asking him."
"Not asking him what?" Glen asked, her attention on the piles of junk.
"About the whole 'eighth child' thing. A lot of people wouldn't have let it slide; after all, one more soul, and Mom ... Queen Toriel will have all the souls she needs."
After a few moments of silence, Glen asked, "You wanna talk about that?"
"No thank you." Asriel said, his tone a little stiff.
Glen raised her hands. "Fair enough."
They continued on until Asriel finally came to a stop. How he knew they were there was Glen's guess, as it looked just like every other area of the Junkyard Glen had seen thus far. There was no sign of the other scavengers, but given the sheer amount of junk, that was hardly surprising.
"All right." Asriel said, "We're looking for any entertainment media that's salvageable. Don't bother with tapes or cartridges if they've been in the water; books are the most valuable, with discs and cartridges being next."
"You got it." Glen said, giving Asriel a mock salute. In truth, Glen had her own mission. The Sans and Papyrus of that reality were about to encounter their Frisk ... or whoever the fallen child would turn out to be. While Glen wanted to think the child would be kind and merciful like her Frisk, her experiences thus far in the Underground made her cautious, especially in the mixed up reality she currently occupied. Perhaps the ichor was an isolated thing ... or perhaps it was part of something larger. Either way, she would really feel more comfortable if she had Headache back.
With the original existing in various bits across a few hundred yards in another dimension, that meant she'd have to put something together there. Fortunately, there was no better place for that than a junkyard.
Walking through the junkyard brought with it memories of her time in Rimstak. Desperately seeking a way to make a name for herself so Teria's parents would accept their union, she'd spent a lot of time in the various junkyards of both Shineside and Shadeside scavenging for parts. She even made friends with the local boogieman.
"A shame you aren't here, Corra." Glen commented to herself. "You'd probably find all this fascinating."
Spotting an object that could be altered to serve as the framework for an UBT, Glen tried unsuccessfully to remove it from the pile before realizing it was attached to a long metal pole buried by the pile. Instinctively, she grabbed a small fusion cutter and moved to cut away the pole.
She paused, her eyes on the fusion cutter. Glancing down, she found she was wearing her work belt. She'd summoned it automatically, the same way it always did when she was getting ready to work. Glen had done it so often that she barely even thought about it anymore.
From her time with Narrator Number One, she knew her Dreamer abilities allowed her to summon items into existence. Smaller items like pens and tape were simple; more complicated items and grouped items were a little harder, and anything large or extremely complicated required intimate knowledge of the inner workings and assembly. For example, she could summon a nice pancake breakfast because she often cooked it for herself and her wife. She could not, however, summon a nice lobster thermidor; last time she'd tried to cook lobster, the end result ended up rampaging across Longshore.
Still, she was familiar with Headache; she'd rebuilt it three times. She knew every wire, every circuit, every switch perfectly. So why couldn't she summon a new Headache?
She closed her eyes and focused on creating a mental image of headache; every nut, every bolt, every module. Reaching out her hands, she willed the UBTs appear around her arms.
She felt a rush of energy leave her and opened her eyes in time to see Headache appear around her arms ... and promptly fall into pieces.
Disappointed, Glen was nevertheless hopeful. She'd managed to summon the scattered bits of Headache from another dimension, probably thanks to the fragment of the Inverse Harmonius she possessed. Admittedly, most of it was scrap, but it was a start. Perhaps with it there, she could reassemble it as well.
No sooner than the thought passed her mind, her rune flashed again. Bits of Headache rose in the air, torn metal and severed wires repairing themselves as she watched. Excited, she focused her thoughts on memories of putting Headache together; laying out the circuitry and the wiring, designing the modular compartments and the upgrade modules from technologies she encountered across her travels.
It was working! Headache was slowly reforming before her eyes as the energy of dreams emanated from Glen's rune. She laughed out loud; had she known it was so easy,she would've done it ages ago. Hell, she might've been able to summon it away from Asgore before their fight even started.
A loud clang sounded behind her, making Glen turn her head. One of the piles of trash had collapsed, sending a small wave of broken appliances, metal scrap, and other assorted refuse. It was only a small pile, and wasn't close enough to cause Glen any concern. Still, the way the garbage tumbled down made it look like a great snake slithering through the garbage.
Her rune pulsed, emanating a brief surge of power. Startled, Glen turned back to see machinery from the junkyard tumbling toward the place where Headache was assembling. The image of the snake of trash again entered her mind, making the rune pulse again.
"Oh, no ... no, no, no." Glen said, trying to cut off the dream energy. Her rune pulsed again, sending out more energy into the construct. More machinery attached itself to Headache, combining to form a larger, longer machine that grew by the minute.
Glen was still struggling to quell her rune when she heard Asriel call out, "Miss Garamond? I heard a crash. Is something wrong?"
"That's putting it lightly." Glen said through clenched teeth. Through sheer force of will, she managed to pull her hand away from the construct. Her Anti-ka Maru died instantly, but the ever-growing construct was still imbued with a lot of dream energy. It grew, absorbing materials from the nearby piles.
Asriel stopped beside Glen as the now-massive machine writhed before them. His eyes widened at the sight. "W-what is that?"
"Bad news." Glen said, backing away. There was a definite form to the mechanical monstrosity in front of them, and she didn't like it one bit. "Um, Asriel?"
"Y-yeah?"
"RUN!"
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