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cregla · 3 years ago

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DREAM SMP UNDERTALE!AU

The previous parts can be found at the end of the post.

ONCE AGAIN:

Ranboo goes back, far back in time, to the Ruins. The ghost boy is finally there, looking extremely worried and upset, towering over him and the allium flowers that had held back Ranboo's fall the first time too. Dream is nowhere to be seen. Before Techno can arrive, Ranboo and the ghost boy talk - as even the ghost asks why he didn't leave and what happened in the final battle. Ranboo explains that someone had answered his call and freed the SIX SOULS of the other players to rescue him, and asks if it was him the one who did it - but the ghost boy denies it. Ranboo continues to be confused, and finally guesses that it had been the other presence who apparently is still following him in the shadows. When Techno arrives, Ranboo does everything he did the first time, and lets himself be escorted home innocently. Here, he spends even more time trying to bond with Techno. He helps him feed the animals, teaches him the Enderman language so he can communicate with his "roommate" Edward, they train together. When Ranboo leaves it hurts more, it almost sounds like betrayal instead of goodbye, but the time they spent together is more meaningful this time around. Ranboo explores the ruins, talks to the inhabitants, does good deeds. Techno still gives him the axe of peace. Ranboo still leaves the ruins behind. Dream is still nowhere to be seen. When Ranboo meets Karl again, he is tempted to ask him if he remembers everything: after all, Karl looks at him as if he does, or at least it seems like he knows him a bit. However the other just introduces himself again, as if nothing has happened. Again he warns him of the danger posed by his fiancées. Again Ranboo meets Sapnap and Quackity, is chased, threatened, almost defeated. Again he saves their lives before continuing on. This time, Karl does not warn him against a "Dream". There is no need. Ranboo visits the Hotlands, meets Puffy, gets escorted by her. Again he and the ghost boy run away from the Royal Guards, meet Sam, confront him. Again Sam spares Ranboo. Again, Sapnap and Quackity follow his example. Fundy tries to deceive him, Jack and Niki try to kill him. Their true plan is revealed, Ghostbur intervenes again, the three apologize and offer to really show him the way to the capital. This time, Ranbo hesitates. He wants to spend more time with the friends he made, he says. He wants to go back and get to know the Underground better before he leaves it forever.

And so, for now, he stays.

THE UNDERGROUND AND THE DREAM SMP:

It starts slowly, and happily. Ranboo explores. He speaks with all Snowchester's citizens, tours every single corner of the Badlands, of the Greater Land. The Royal Guards accompany him, scared that someone could try to kill Ranboo or bring him to the King, and the Ranboo gets to know all of them more. What they like to eat, their favorite places, their hobbies, their hopes and dreams. They introduce him to their pets, they talk about their family. It’s like if they have never, ever been enemies.

As Ranboo reaches the ruins of the “Community House”, he asks them what happened here – and this time, when Sapnap, Puffy and Sam arrive, they are ready to speak about the past that torments them. They tell him about the three Players who had fallen in the Underground a long time ago, before the Hunt, before Sam was even the Warden, when there was another King and the SMP was in peace. About how two of the children were adopted by the now King Philza, at the time Captain of the Guards, but “Clay”, who was instead an adult, decided to find himself a new home instead. That he met Sapnap and the two became best friends immediately. They formed a very close group: him, Sapnap, Sam, Puffy, Bad, and their other friends – George, Callahan, Alyssa and Ponk. They were inseparable, especially Sapnap, Clay and George. Then, one day, Clay got sick, and no matter what they tried no one could help him. He died, and then Philza’s children died too, and the Underground fell into chaos. As the new laws regarding hunting Players were passed, the group started to fight. George was the most vocal about not wanting to go along this “crazy idea”, remembering well how their friend had been from the surface, like those they wanted to kill, and didn’t want to stay to witness the Hunt, to stay where everything reminded him of Clay – some, like Callahan, Alyssa and Ponk, agreed with him. Puffy and Bad did too, but they didn’t want to leave their houses, the people they were close with – Bad had found Skeppy and Ant, and Puffy decided right there that she would stay behind so she could help the players who would fall in the future, instead of just running away. Sapnap and Sam had people here too (for example, Sapnap had just met Quackity), but mostly the two were filled with rage and grief. As those who wanted to stay believed that one day, they would either all agree with each other, or stopped fighting, George suddenly burned down the Community House where they had all lived, then ran away with Alyssa, Ponk and Callahan without telling anyone about it, leaving all of them behind. Sapnap confesses to Ranboo that he had been so angry about their decision for so long, feeling as if them, just like Clay, had left him behind, but now he was just sad, wanting his friend back and this whole situation to stop. He realizes now that George was right, seeing as Ranboo was good and innocent and that it wasn’t his fault that Clay and the others had died. Ranboo asks Sapnap if he wants him to help go search for his friend, but Sapnap refuses, saying that it’s something he has to do by “himself” or, at least, with Sam, Puffy and Bad. Puffy, Bad and Sam talk about the past too. How they all feel guilty for having let their family run away, but at the same time, they can’t stop being happy for what they have right now. Puffy introduces Ranboo to her adopted child, Michelle, confess to him how she and Niki may have something going on, tells stories about what she does when she’s not on guard, how she’s always trying to help people – when actually, the first people that needed help and support was herself, and that she’s glad that she has found that support in the rest of the Royal Guard now that they’re not enemies anymore. Bad confess how hunting players was something that he always knew was bad, but that he felt it was “the only option left” to keep what he still had left safe – he was too scared about what could have happened to his friends, to Skeppy, to the rest of the Underground, as not all those who have fallen down had approached the situation in Ranboo’s pacific way – he had to be the “evil” one to obtain what he wanted, because otherwise, he would have been useless. Except he is not, and never was, and both Ranboo, and Skeppy, and Ant and all the others actually show him that. Sam feels guilty for the incident, too. As apprentice to the Captain of the Guards, he had spent lots of time in the castle – and had met the two children who had fallen down, Tubbo and Tommy, bonding particularly with the latter one. He had been on guard when Wilbur had

taken Clay to the Barrier, and had been on guard when Tommy and Tubbo had managed, no one knows how, to follow him. He had actually witnessed their death with his own eyes. He had never felt that the Players were their enemies, he knew very well that what they were doing wasn’t good. However, he had believed it to be a necessary sacrifice – as in, if the Barrier hadn’t been active that day, Sam could have followed the kids and stopped them. To pull down the Barrier would have meant to confront the Players that had exiled them – and hopefully either start a new era of peace, or forcefully convince them to accept the Dream SMP, meaning that an incident like that would never happen again. But no matter what the intentions were, if they were good or not, murder is still murder – and Sam has realized it with Ranboo. He says to the boy that, had he known what was going to happen and what would he have become, he would have run away with Ponk – who had been disappointed in him, and had tried to convince him to join them in their journey – instead of staying, but that if that has led him to meet Ranboo, then he can accept it and start making amends.

As Ranboo leaves the ruins of the Community House, he meets Karl once again, who invites him to have a drink with him. After making small talks for a little bit, Karl tells a story that, he confesses, he has never told anyone else on the server. He tells him that he had met Sapnap and Quackity when the Hunt had already begun and, at the time, he hadn’t actually cared at all if the players would live or die. Actually, he had wanted to support Sapnap and Quackity in their job. Why wouldn’t he? Until one day, while he was walking around this area, he met a boy – a young man, watching the ruins as if he was mourning for them. When the stranger had noticed Karl, he had panicked, threatening him and asking him to not tell anyone that he saw him – until the man, apparently, had recognized the sweater he was wearing at that moment, something that he had stolen from Sapnap’s closet, and Karl had recognized him from a photo that his fiancé still kept, although hidden. Calmed down, and reassured by Karl’s promise that he wouldn’t tell anyone that he had met him, the stranger had started to open up with the boy, telling him how he would, sometimes, travel back to the SMP to look after his old friends, even from far afar and how, every single time, he had tried to help, from the shadows, the new players who would fell in the SMP. But he was tired. No matter what he’d do, the players would all try to leave, and they would die, and his friends would never go back to what they were before. His other companions were waiting for him, and he didn’t want to come back anymore. Not when this place would hold so many memories. Karl convinced him to come back, once, twice, thrice. He would keep his promise, and they would sit beside the ruins of the Community Center, and they would talk. They became friends. Until one day, the man told him that that was the last time he would go back – and he asked him for a favor. "If another player ever comes to the Underground, can you promise me one thing?" And Karl had promised – promised to be the one to protect players who would fall in the Underground and wandered around the SMP. That was the only reason why Ranboo is even alive – the only reason why Karl hadn’t killed him on the spot when he had met him. Karl reassures him that he's going to talk to Sapnap and Quackity – now that Sapnap has decided to go find his old friends, it’s just the right thing to do. Then, before leaving, he briefly mentions that while this is definitely the first time the two have had this conversation, it's not the first time Ranboo embarks on this journey into the Underground - hinting once again that he knows very well that Ranboo has the power of reset.

While traveling around the Greater SMP, Jack and Niki decide to escort Ranboo once again – this time, with no intention of killing him. They say they are sorry so many times, but it’s only when they are alone – one on one, first with Jack and then with Niki, that Ranboo can understand why they did what they did. For Jack, it wasn’t as personal as for Niki. He had known the fallen players, sure, had been friends with them and even had a bit of a rivalry with Tommy, but he hadn’t actually believed them to have been responsible for the incident, nor that other players like Ranboo could destroy them. Mostly, it had been inferiority. Jack, after many days of hesitating, manages to confess that he had always felt invisible in the Underground – no matter how close was with someone, no matter what he would do, people would just… overlook him. To hunt for other players, to go along Niki and their little schemes, it was like feeling important for the very first time – and, as years passed, he forgot about why he did it in the first place.

Niki was a close friend of Wilbur, since they were children. She had loved him like a best friend, even a brother, for so long, and then one day – the outside world had taken him away from her. Killed him, because he had been so kind and had wanted to bring Clay back to his hometown to bury him. In her heart, she blamed all of them – the Players who had killed him, Clay for having that final wish, and even Tommy and Tubbo, for she believed that maybe, hadn’t they followed Wilbur outside, he would have protected himself and survived instead of being injured to protect them. For years and years, her hate had blinded her – until now. And now, she realizes that the fault of Wilbur’s death rests only on the shoulders of his murderers: not on Clay’s, not on Tommy’s or Tubbo’s, and not on every single other player like Ranboo, who weren’t even involved. For the first time in forever, she feels… not at peace, no. That is a trauma that will never pass. But better, yes… better. As they both, once again, say sorry, they tell Ranboo to talk with Fundy regarding Wilbur – as he’s the one who has suffered more for his loss. He was, after all, his father.

Finding Fundy at home, the boy is actually a bit wary and initially doesn’t want to share his feelings regarding the situation – but as time passes, he actually starts to talk about the past, about his father. Fundy had been young, very young, when the first Players fell to the Underground, when those who would become his adoptive uncles came. At the time, he had been the child of the family, and Wilbur, his father had… well, treated him as a child. Overprotective, overbearing, affectionate – at the time, Fundy had started to hate it, because he had wanted to be seen as an “adult” (even if he wasn’t), a grown-up. He had started rejecting Wilbur’s affection until one day, he had died. And Fundy had never seen him, or his uncles, again. Left alone with a grandfather who immediately started his rampage against the players of the surface, who cared but not enough, and with friends of his father who either were angry, suffering, or left. And he had tried, at first – he met another player, and really tried to help, by hiding them from his grandpa. He had started looking at the player as another parental figure, a player who had promised to stay – until she hadn’t, and had run away to try to escape the Underground and died. Leaving him too. Betraying him, by trying to get his grandfather’s soul to use it on the Barrier. So really, what was the point? Players would only leave you behind, would only take everything you love away – why wouldn’t Fundy tried to help try to gain the attention of his grandfather, instead of helping strangers who deserved their fate? But he had been wrong, he knows now, and he still begs Ranboo to stay – to not go to L’Manberg, to not follow in the path of the others players – but he also knows that he can’t stop him from trying to get home. As Ranboo’s leaving the house, Ghostbur arrives to say hi to Fundy. At Ranboo’s confusion regarding Ghostbur’s existence (as in, everyone has said that they don’t know why Wilbur, and only Wilbur, came back as a ghost – and so different from how he was when he lived), Fundy seems to feel guilt, and after hesitating he decides to “confess” the truth to Ranboo – by asking him to follow him to a weird, now abandoned structure – the Manberg’s Laboratory.

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