BEECE'S PIECES (COMMISSIONS OPEN)

in this au monsters would sort of be another type of fairy, but they're in like a whole other category, not technically fairies, but magical creatures that are made of only magic and dust.

So, because they're made of so much magic, that means their forms can differ as wildly as they do in the game. They're like the equal opposite to humans in terms of magic vs flesh, humans are almost all flesh no magic and monsters are almost all magic no flesh, so they're at opposite ends, and that's where all of the contention comes from.

But monsters can do magic attacks, and that's what makes them seem more dangerous to humans, so they're the only ones that are fully trapped underground instead of just being driven away under there. I think the fairies would just assume all of the monsters had been killed, given how weak monsters are to one dedicated enough human, and how thoroughly humanity had forgotten them.

But a large surge of magic is detected at Mount Ebott and there's been a notable few missing person's cases over there over the last few hundred years, so Foaly puts together a small research team to go over there and see if they can detect exactly where the powerful magic surge originated from. He invites Artemis along too and calls it like a school field trip jokingly, but he actually does think Artemis might have some interesting thoughts on the situation and wants someone as competent as him there. Butler is there as well, but Artemis still manages to fall into the underground because of course he does. I guess the Barrier is only permeable to one human at a time, or only to human children because blah blah soul magic prophecy etc. I'm not actually sure, but the facts are that none of the fairies can go down there with him, and neither can Butler. Trust me, he tried.

Artemis is lured into the Underground by the sound of a child's voice calling for help. Always one to be independently self-sacrificial, he wandered off in the direction of the voice. In his defense, the massive drop-off really wasn't that far from where the LEP had set up camp. It was hidden by vines and was a slippery incline that transitioned directly into a sheer fall, so really what happened was Butler had stopped looking at Artemis for maybe 15 seconds, then they just heard a yell that rapidly got farther away, and that was that.

He wakes up in a large patch of golden flowers and sunlight, and is soon greeted by Flowey. He honestly wouldn't say anything for Flowey's entire introduction, he'd just be watching with wide eyes and raised eyebrows. He did not expect any of this. So it takes the battle initiating and his soul being pulled into view for anything to change.

Artemis' soul is kinda freaky and unnatural. That is to say, this kind of soul cannot be created through natural means.

This is Artemis post-resurrection, in a clone body after his death in the last book. His original soul was green, but in his resurrection he gained traits of the classic Determination soul (get it? De-termination?), so he's sort of got a semi-transparent layer of a red soul on top of a green soul, which makes a 3D glasses lookin amalgamation orange soul. Flowey thinks it looks gross, and that kind of throws him off of his whole game, but the attacks come soon after, and so does Toriel.

Artemis has absolutely no reason to be suspicious of Toriel. He knows magical creatures, magical creatures are his friends. Flowey is the outlier here. So Toriel is innocent until proven guilty. Meaning, she just seems to be a very nice lady. Even if he's quietly irritated at being treated like a child which he so totally definitely is not (sarcasm).

Toriel is genuinely just... so nice. So he's going along with her leading him around while he takes in everything. This is an absolutely incredible discovery, he's feeling very amazed and inspired right now, and ends up asking Toriel a lot of questions about the monsters. He gets a sort of child-friendly overview of the situation of the Underground and the monsters as a trapped civilization, before she conveniently changes the subject as they get to the dummy fight.

The whole 'sparing people in battles by talking to them' thing sounds way too good to be true. But he has no reason to believe Toriel is lying to him about it being a viable option, and he finds the idea of attacking the people and changing ecosystem down here to be completely reprehensible, so why not give it a shot?

And... it works. On a dummy. Which is weird. He had tried to say an icebreaker he'd read on the internet, and the dummy found it so awkward that it... left?

Toriel was proud, at least. And it demonstrates to Artemis that magic is much different down here, more potent... it's strange.

Toriel doesn't make him walk across the room by himself, because he's a teenager, that would just be silly. But she does leave him with a phone (great, because his stopped working as soon as he passed the barrier), and a promise to return soon. She asks him to stay put. He does not.

Traveling around the Ruins by himself goes about as you would expect. He encounters battles and generally gets out of them unscathed, but a moldsmal does manage to slime his shirt and he gets disproportionately upset about it. It's EGYPTIAN COTTON.

Despite this, he travels around with an air of wonder and discovery. The Underground is so far much more whimsical and, honestly, delightful than he could have anticipated. There was a group of spiders having a bake sale and a ghost cried himself a top hat. This place is amazing and scientifically improbable in all of the best ways.

And he has no preference for cinnamon or butterscotch, so everything works out for everyone.

He even gets a sweater to cover the stained shirt! It's just. Um.

Well, anyway, Artemis asks Toriel to borrow a couple of her books on the Underground, and spends about an hour reading through the meager history it supplies. The books aren't very long, and they are very dusty. It seems like they were written a long, long time ago, possibly only a few years after the barrier was created. Nonetheless, he's got a rough idea of what happened, now.

A war between monsters and humans. Typical.

As nice as Toriel is, and as good as the pie tastes, he does have to move on. But he's a very observant person, obviously, and he's not going to miss all of the obvious implications that he is far from the only young human to live with her in this old house. Given all of the toys, the shoes, the implications... he's probably the oldest one yet. And that is. Upsetting. Not in the least because he knows he has to leave her, too.

He isn't going to fight her, weapon or no weapon. He did find a toy knife on the ground, but he's not going to use that. It probably wouldn't even do anything. So he just stumbles around her attacks and narrowly avoids getting his hair singed until he convinces her to let him go. It's all very emotional, but he's already determined to free the monsters, so to him, this isn't a goodbye. Even if Toriel tells him not to come back.

That's fine. He doesn't need to come back. She's going to leave the Underground with everyone else once he figures out how to break the Barrier.

Flowey calls him a freak with a freak soul, and has a lot of intimidating things to say. The flower is a strange divergence from every other monster so far, being much more obviously malevolent and clearly plotting something. But whatever it is, he'll have to take it as it comes, and continue on doing as little harm to monster society as he can manage.

Anyway, Sans is annoying. Artemis manages to dodge the whoopee cushion in the hand trick by claiming he's actually left handed, but he takes a step backwards and steps on a whoopee cushion in the snow behind him. How??

The 'How??' continues as they move forward and find a lamp that is his exact height and rough body type. Something magical must be going on here.

What the hell is wrong with these people.

DISREGARDING THAT, he traverses through Snowdin and is reluctantly amused by the skeleton shenanigans. Increasingly amused, really. Especially by the puns. They're a mix of clever and so stupid that they're almost clever. It's kind of really hitting his 'funny bone' past a certain point, but he has absolutely no idea how to react to that like a normal functioning person, so he just makes a weird facial expression and then is back to normal.

He does spend like, 15 minutes at least petting the dog to see how long its neck is going to get. Scientific curiosity.

Papyrus is............................. nice. Very interesting, actually. He's like a living cartoon character. And he obviously doesn't want to hurt anyone, despite clearly being capable of it if he really tried. It's sweet, honestly. Artemis has never really encountered anyone like that yet, not even in the Underground. Not even among the fairies. Especially among the fairies, actually.

Despite this, Papyrus does end up beating him up a little. But it's kind of impossible to be angry at him. A scenario like the friend date does end up happening, mostly because Artemis is extremely curious to see what's going on in the skeleton household. It's about exactly what he expected. There's some sort of insane quantum physics going on in here. And it's all being utilized for a variety of visual gags. There has to be something in the water down here.

He's gotten cuts and bruises and even possibly a cracked rib or two up to this point, but it's hard to hold anything against the monsters when they're... like that. And when he can eat magical food that can heal him instantly.

Also, there's gold everywhere. Somewhere inside of him, 12 year old Artemis is screaming bloody murder.

Things are quite different when he enters Waterfall. The atmosphere is different. It feels realer, somehow. It feels like danger is lurking in the shadows. But before he can process all of that too much, Sans brings him to Grillby's.

The bougie, nose-in-the-air version of Artemis tells him he should hate Grillby's, but the friendly hole-in-the-wall vibe of the building and the way they greet Sans in such a casual and teasing way, it's just so different and fascinating to him. He hasn't exactly ever been to a pub in his life, so this is all very new. It's kind of nice, if a bit too greasy. He picks at the fries they order like a bird, considering that.

Then Sans literally pauses time, which is insane. Hello?? Who is this man. This is the most massive display of power Artemis has seen yet. It's kind of terrifying. In a moment of suspicion, he avoids telling Sans about Flowey, unsure what he would do with that information. He wants to understand the situation further before handing out information, even if he does think Sans is funny. Funnier than Mulch, sorry Mulch. But maybe the same level of terrifying.

Anyway, so UNDYNE.

She is a problem. Up until now, nobody has done serious harm to Artemis. I mean a lot of these battles might seem difficult, but Artemis is extremely good with patterns and puzzles and almost anything they can throw at him, so all he has to do is figure out where to go at the right time, and he's fine. But Undyne is unlike any of the others: she's highly skilled, she's fast, she's more than willing to kill him without stopping long enough to get a single word in. In a terrifying chase, she manages to rip a wound into his shoulder with a spear, which is the most serious injury he's sustained so far. He's able to heal it after he gets away, thankfully, but his shirt has a permanent tear in it, which is heartbreaking. There is now no saving this shirt.

He had only briefly removed the sweater after exiting Snowdin, but now the 'armor' it provides will be invaluable.

So far, Undyne is the only person in the Underground who Artemis hates. She presents a consistent and terrifying problem that doesn't align with what he's come to expect, and fighting her is far out of his league. Aside from that, Waterfall is a peaceful, beautiful, and incredibly somber place. It's where the prophecy is detailed, which feels foreboding, and the fields of flowers whispering the wishes of countless monsters who may or may not still be alive are devastating.

It makes him more determined to free them, but he's beginning to worry that there may be some difficult choices ahead.

Waterfall is also where he encounters Monster Kid, of course. Because he's obviously a bigger kid, MK is reluctant to approach him. But Artemis pities the little armless monster and offers to hold an umbrella for him, which causes MK to warm up to him almost immediately. MK is convinced they're best friends now.

Shortly after they part ways, Artemis dies for the first time. In the Underground, that is. This is the second time he's died overall, but still.

When Undyne chases him with spears for the second time, one manages to hit home. It impales him through the stomach, and he dies. Slowly and painfully. But Undyne cuts it short by mercy-killing him with another spear to the head.

He wakes up at the last save point he had unknowingly made, and has a massive panic attack.

he ends up back at Sans' stall and his thousand yard stare starts to get the guy a little concerned. Sans knows about the resets, vaguely. He has an idea of when they occur, so he gets the vibe that one happened, but he wasn't really expecting this kind of reaction to it. He was expecting. Something else.

Being himself, Sans provides a sort of weird confusing half-comfort that still somehow works. He tells the story of meeting Toriel from behind the door, but without the uh... followup part about the promise. Maybe he'll get to that later. But for now, just listening to the story gives Artemis something to focus on, and he manages to calm down.

But he really, really doesn't like Undyne right now. She continues to chase him and he manages to survive the spears this time, but falls into the trash, where he meets Mad Dummy and has to deal with all of that. Honestly, it's kind of a relief after all of the Undyne stuff. Especially when Napstablook shows up.

He spends maybe a bit too long hanging around Napstablook's house. It's nice there, calm. There's some sort of magical constellation effect when you lay down on the floor and pretend to be garbage. Overall, it was a relaxing experience and he decided he deserved to indulge in a little more whimsy before the horrors continue.

He gains a lot of information from meeting Gerson, but trying to pry any more out of him is an exercise in futility. Still, he learns some more about Asgore, the king who's supposed to kill him. Despite all of the cutesy stories, he's still mentally prepared to face someone terrifying.

Temmie village is....... he didn't like it.

Not long after that, Undyne finds him once again, and starts delivering a monologue about the 7 human souls. Being himself, Artemis interrupts her and tells her he already knows about that, and proceeds to piss her off with his personality. They have a short back and forth before she surges forward and bashes him in the face with the blunt end of her spear, giving him a nasty black eye, and is seconds away from attacking again before MK runs out of the foliage and stops to stare in horror at the scene before him.

He's dragged away, and Artemis pries himself off of the floor and tries to escape, but MK finds him again at the rickety bridge and gets Artemis to admit that he's a human. So MK runs off, trips, and Artemis immediately starts running forwards, but Undyne appears at the other end of the bridge, and he freezes. It takes MK shrieking as he loses his grip for him to run and dive to grab the kid's shirt, but he's slipping, and Artemis proceeds to turn and yell at Undyne to help.

Undyne seems to jerk back to life and moves forward, and they both pull MK to safety. He immediately puffs up and starts telling Undyne to back off, and miraculously, she does.

Y'know. For like, two seconds. And then she's back in the next scene, and it's time to battle.

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The battle goes about how it does in canon, with just surviving and running as much as he can while being called by Papyrus. He doesn't process anything the skeleton says and just agrees to whatever it is before hanging up as they reach Hotland, and Undyne finally collapses.

And Artemis really was tempted to just leave her there. But even though she makes him angry, she killed him, she gave him a black eye and sliced his shoulder and threw him into the garbage, he's not going to let her die. Because he understands why she's doing this. Really, though he'd sacrifice himself to save humanity, he isn't its biggest fan either. So he pours a glass of water on her, and they part ways. And he calls Papyrus back and yells at him about telling people he's pregnant (HE'S NOT. IT'S A SWEATER. WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE)

The most important thing to keep in mind is the fact that magical girls/boys are not often picked because they are the person best physically suited for the job. In the case of one of my favorite magical girls, Usagi from Sailor Moon, she was neither physically nor mentally suited for the job, and had to learn everything from scratch because she really wasn't supposed to be doing any of that from the start. In Artemis' case, when he's in the middle of his arc of exponentially increasing mental illness combined with a burgeoning hero complex, he is at his most interesting in terms of suddenly being shoved into a heroic magical destiny against his will. Add to this the fact that he would be around 14/15 when this happens, which is The Age Where People Are Magical Girls.

I'll also clarify that no matter how much I refer to him or this entire genre as 'Magical Girl', he is still very much just a boy. Being a Magical Girl is a gender neutral job title to me.

So in this AU, it's understood that magical humans as a concept were like... a thing, for humanity. They were well-documented, they existed, but then they just started disappearing and the last one recorded was like a century ago or longer, so they haven't been around for a while. Artemis steals some fairy magic in the 5th book, and this ends up unintentionally activating those latent human magical abilities that can only appear under certain circumstances. He is the first and only human to unlock these abilities in over a hundred years, and the entities that used to be in charge of managing this power were Not Expecting That.

Little do the fairies as well as the humans know, this was never supposed to happen again. The entity that appears to Artemis is VERY AGAINST this. But as soon as he officially unlocks his abilities in a surge of magic that he spends trying to heal his mother (which actually just pushes Opal out of his mother's body, making the plot of the sixth book no longer possible and we pretend it never happened), the old issue that caused past magical girls to be necessary in the first place is kick-started into existence once again. As soon as that specific kind of magic is reintroduced, the monsters that the old magical girls used to fight begin to re-manifest.

This is a good thing and a bad thing. Bad thing because there are giant monsters once again appearing and attacking people, but good because those monsters are actually physical manifestations of problems that are already plaguing the earth. Such as: pollution. When the monster is defeated, it helps to heal that issue that otherwise probably would have remained stagnant. For example, imagine that some kind of nonspecific factory has been dumping oil into a lake for a few years. Now that lake is going to summon a giant magical Pollution Beast that the local magical girl has to fight. Once it's defeated, the pollution will also disappear. However it will return inevitably if the factory keeps dumping into that lake.

Because Artemis is the only magical human in the world at the moment, that magic is only really spreading outwards from his area of influence. It's an Ireland-specific problem for now, and because it's him, all of the monsters are sort of personalized. This means they usually show up as fairy-adjacent mythical creatures.

Artemis does not like any of this, to be clear. He wants to fix global warming and destroy pollution with the power of science and invention, not from hitting it really hard with a big stick. But it becomes increasingly obvious that the monsters are unstoppable by anything other than the magic unlocked within himself. In classic magical girl fashion: he really doesn't have a choice. Plus, later-series Artemis loves to blame and hate himself, so he sees all of this as purely his fault anyway. Any injuries or casualties would fill him with an immense sense of guilt and self-hatred.

The entity assigned to him is sort of perpetually irritated and very obviously reluctant to do its job. It tells him the bare minimum of what he needs to know, and it does help him get out of tough scrapes, but it seems to want to be there even less than he does. Because I have it appear in a sort of replica of the C-cube, let's just call this character... Eternity. Artemis doesn't know it, but Eternity was actually there when the last magical girls all bit the dust, and it became completely disillusioned by everything it saw that day. It just doesn't want to see any of this happening again, and hates the fact that it has to curate this experience for another magical human who is probably just going to die like the last ones. And dear god, this one is just a teenager.

It doesn't help that Artemis didn't get to pick the outfit that appears when he activates his magic, and now everyone on earth thinks he looks girly. Now he has to fight giant monsters AND sexism. The outfit is sort of a soul-manifestation type deal that doesn't really care that the big fairy rose flower looks like a skirt. Eternity does not care to change it. Maybe a friendship arc of some kind happens later down the line and he gets a magical upgrade that includes pants this time.

This would not be a super classic version of magical girl shenanigans for a number of reasons, including the fact that Artemis is who he is. He is the smartest person in at LEAST the entirety of Europe, and he can improvise a pretty good plan on the spot. He does have to improve his physical fitness by a lot, however. That's his number one road-block. He starts out struggling to hit hard enough and in the right spots, being unable to keep his balance, to dodge, to run quickly and quietly, and a whole heap of other issues. He's much more alone in this than he's ever been before, and it shows. There's a lot he needs to learn about himself, and plenty of it can be found in other people.

Meanwhile, all of this is happening directly in front of both humanity AND the fairies. The reaction from humanity is mixed, leaning towards positive (the people in Ireland who aren't scared of being attacked by giant monsters are absolutely THRILLED that they're the ones who get the first modern magical girl, WOO GO IRELAND YEAH WOO), but the fairy people's general opinion of humanity is... complicated. Artemis has both worsened and improved this issue, depending on who you ask. By and large, the fairies feel kind of threatened by this new magical person. The ones who aren't threatened are at least very curious. It's decided quickly that this human needs to be caught and brought in by the LEP for questioning, immediately. Now, the problem is, they are very, VERY difficult to catch. It's almost like whoever this is knows about the fairies, is able to predict their movements, even know about them in advance... but that's impossible. The only human they're ever in contact with is Artemis, and he said he's ALSO trying to track the magical human down. He has a cork-board with red yarn pinned all over it and everything.

So, yeah, avoiding the fairies while in magical boy form is another thing Artemis has to worry about. Thankfully, he's able to spot them very easily, and knows about some of their plans from Holly and Foaly just... telling him about it. Using fairy technology he scavenged from his numerous ventures in the past, he's created contacts to spot a shielding fairy, as well as a few other little helpful devices that help him and alert him when another magical presence is nearby. Neutrinos also have minimized effects on him while in magical form.

Holly and Foaly's opinions about this magical human (Unidentified Freaking Thing) go from curiosity and excitement at the initial discovery, to irritation at the repeated evasion of capture, to growing concern the longer the situation continues. Because it's not all sunshine and rainbows: in fact it mostly isn't either of those things. Artemis gets hit very frequently. He gets better at dodging and returning fire, but the monsters get stronger, and they hit harder and faster. Sometimes he struggles a lot, and a few times it seems like he barely escaped with his life. They may not know who this human is, but the other humans seem to be getting more and more convinced that this person is a teenager, and they're regularly getting the snot beat out of them. They're doing their best to help people and receiving mixed harassment along with the praise, and it seems like they're all alone. So between attempts at capture and containment, Holly and any other fairies being sent out to intervene try to do their best to help where they can. They can only do so much, but the support is greatly appreciated.

Butler is the most likely candidate to notice what's going on, but Artemis is ironically also the only person smart enough to be able to evade detection by even his own bodyguard for at least a few months. He does start actually paying attention in Butler's self defense lessons once the man watches the news and openly criticizes "that magical girl's extremely poor form and fighting ability" in front of him. Fair, but still, ouch. Butler's suspicion grows stronger as Artemis starts to improve, and a few of his moves are eerily familiar...

But despite all of the odds of being the first person to figure it out being in Butler's or at least Holly's favor, the one who actually discovers the secret by sheer luck and coincidence is the person Artemis genuinely didn't expect to be there at that moment in time: Mulch.

Mulch is just the funniest person to find out about it first. And he does so not very long after the whole thing begins. He simply sees the de-transformation happen. At first he thinks it's hilarious, and agrees to keep it a secret, but the longer it goes on the more obvious it gets that this is kind of not good.

See, there's a lot of problems with this situation. Obvious danger, for one, because even being fairly powerful does not erase the chance of death, and Artemis' quick thinking is really the only reason he survives most of those battles. He gets bruises and scrapes, sometimes worse, and though it heals quickly on its own, it's still... there. Mulch likes to be there at the end of fights more and more often, and so he sees these injuries at their worst, and sometimes has to help patch him up. Then there's also all of the media attention. You don't become the first magical human in over a century without attracting swarms of eyes all over you. Due to the nature of the magic, most of Artemis' identifying features are obscured, so even the greatest camera on or under the crust of the earth isn't going to be able to pick up very much. But this doesn't stop people flying in from all over the world to try and get an interview.

This is where Mulch gets his chance to shine. Not a single reporter successfully gets a word out of Artemis, and they're always completely side-tracked by Mulch inexplicably shoving his way in front of the crowd and claiming to be his 'talent agent'. While the press is distracted, Artemis escapes. Then, Mulch escapes, as he often does. This pisses off every news outlet ever, and is the most fun Mulch has had in literal decades. Plus, he gets to help out his favorite mud boy.

Holly and Foaly aren't really sure if Mulch is working with them or against them, but there doesn't seem to be anything anyone can do to stop him. No matter how hard they try.

Artemis has to try very hard to convince everyone that he's doing his best to uncover this magical girl's secret identity, but man, they're just TOO GOOD at hiding everything. This is the most successful coverup he's ever seen. He found the fairies and even he can't figure out who this person is. Sorry, it must be magic. Nonetheless, he will push courageously forward and keep trying to track them down. Oh, this bruise? It's from Butler's self defense classes. No, he isn't hiding anything. He always wears this much makeup.

By the time someone finally figures it out, it's been months. Ireland is the cleanest it's been in centuries and people are pushing to keep it that way. The media is still storming and people are starting to bring back the age-old debate of how ethical magical girls really are, and how they came to be in the first place. Evolution? Some sort of ancient spell or curse? And will people please stop posting fancams and speculating on this person's identity, we're pretty sure they're in high school. Artemis has gained some problems and is starting to resolve others. He's also a lot jumpier now and, from an outsider's perspective, slightly more obsessed with cubes? He talks to them?

Once Butler inevitably finds out, he'll feel a mixture of pride, guilt, and betrayal. That Artemis didn't tell him all of this, or didn't feel like he could, or should. That he was taking his training seriously, but then ALSO putting himself into even more danger. That he lied to him and to all of his friends and family, but in the pursuit of protecting them, as well as the people being attacked.