magic

Ashley liked papyrus. He was loud and a little annoying at times, but overall, he was pretty nice. After he had first woke up and introduced himself, the group had decided that he would stay with Kris, Frisk, and Chara, since they wanted him to stay. After everyone had introduced himself, Chara had asked why he had climbed the mountain. He explained that he had been looking for a monster that had gone missing on it a week ago and had fallen after getting sidetracked and following some shadowy cat-thing.

Ashley had felt a little bad after hearing that. He had climbed the mountain because she had been dumb enough to climb it with her brothers, and now he was stuck down here in a new and hostile world. His family was probably worried sick…

Papyrus just seemed thrilled to be able to make new friends, though. He had excitedly started explaining about his aspirations to be a detective when Frisk had asked about it, and the two appeared to be getting along famously. It was nice that there were spaces where humans were freindly and even protective of monsters down here. Things felt a lot less dire that way.

There was a problem, though… His magic was incredibly potent; he was incredibly strong, but nobody had really gotten around to properly training him.

When Ash asked about it, he said that his oldest brother was always too busy with something and his other sibling was "dogcrap" with their magic. Undyne (Ash was surprised to hear that name, not everybody is besties with the chief of police) had offered to help, but she didn't come around often, and while he should be learning at least some things at school, they didn't offer a good program for dyslexic kids so he was doing school online.

Which meant that while Papyrus was incredibly gifted, he was unable to properly tap into it. And that is ultimately why, and how, Ashley came to be standing out in the snow outside Brooke's cabin, facing off against Papyrus in a very unnofficial sparring match. Despite never sparring with anyone before; despite never having any experience helping someone learn to use their attacks.

"So, I think you need to brace yourself better against the blaster…" Ashley half-shouted, and Papyrus nodded. He changed his stance to mirror that of an archer, which looked kinda funny from Ash's perspective. "Cool, yeah, that should work. Ok, so, uh… you do know how to control how powerful the blast is, yeah?"

"NOPE :D" Papyrus shrugged. "WE GOT TO SUMMONING AND FIRING AND MAKING WALLS AND STUFF LIKE THAT. CONTROL WAS NEXT! I DID TRY TO PRACTICE IT A LITTLE BEFORE WE STARTED THOUGH, IF THAT HELPS."

fuck my stupid baka life and the decisions that led me here… Ashley thought, before sighing.

"That's what you should have started with." She began to walk closer to Papyrus. "We are not sparring until we make sure you can control your magic properly."

"AW… BUT I ALREADY KNOW HOW TO MAKE THE ATTACKS REALLY STRONG AND HOW TO DODGE AND STUFF! UNDYNE SAYS THAT'S THE MOST IMPORTANT PART."

"Dude… no. You don't want to accidentally dust somebody, and that's what's gonna happen if you don't learn to control how hard these hit." Ashley explained. Papyrus nodded thoughtfully.

"YOU ARE RIGHT. SO HOW DO I DO IT?"

"uhm. Ok, so, focus really hard on how much hp you wanna take, ok?" Ashley crossed her fingers and started praying to the gods that she'd be able to bullshit her way through this. She had no idea what she was doing.

"OKIE DOKIE!" Papyrus grinned and aimed his blaster at a nearby tree, firing. Ashley jumped at the sound, annoyed at how her fur got all bristly.

"You— why'd you fire?!" Ash asked, clenching her fists to keep from smoothing out her fur.

"I THOUGHT THATS WHAT I WAS SUPPOSED TO DO?"

"…ok, ok cool, that's fine. Please warn me next time, though." Ash smiled, and Papyrus smiled back. "Now, I want you to do exactly what you just did, but this time tell me how much damage you're going for. Also, can you use a different attack? the blasters aren't easy to measure… safely…"

"I'LL USE MY BONES." Papyrus nodded, and summoned up several bone attacks while de-summoning his gaster-blaster.

"Yeah, that works."

Papyrus took a deep breath and raised his hand, directing the bones to fly at the tree he'd fired his blaster at. Ashley gently grabbed it and put it down.

"Don't do that. Gotta test how much damage they deal, yknow? Make one of them sharper." Ashley instructed. Papyrus nodded and complied, then offered the bone to Ash.

She took it and pressed the tip to her finger. It stung, but only took off a couple hit-points. Paprus grinned.

"THAT'S HOW MUCH I TOLD IT TO DO." He informed Ash, smiling proudly.

"Really?" Ash narrowed her eyes. "We didn't even go over intent…"

"THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS NATURALLY TALENTED AT EVERYTHING HE TRIES." Papyrus shrugged. Ashley rolled her eyes. "WHAT'S INTENT?"

"Intent is another factor into how much damage an attack does. Basically, if you really wanna hurt somebody, the attack does more, and if you really don't want to hurt them, it'll do less. So when you're fighting you have to take that into account and either raise the amount of damage your attack does or lower it."

"OH. CAN WE WORK ON OTHER STUFF NOW?" Papyrus tilted his head a little, and Ashley sighed.

"I think you should still practice your control, keeping intent in mind and all, just to be safe and get into the habit of measuring that kinda stuff. But sure, I guess we can move on… What else did you need to work on?"

"I GOTTA WORK ON FIGHTING STYLES AND GETTING COMFORTABLE WITH ALL MY ATTACKS AND PROPER BATTLE ETIQUETTE AND—"

"Ok, ok, ok." Ashley put up her hands. "So, battle etiquette, cool. You already understand how the battle system works?"

"NOPE, BUT UNDYNE SAID ID GET THE HANG OF IT AS WE SPARRED."

"…why did she not want to teach you the important stuff?" Ashley grumbled. "No, you need to know that sort of thing before we start on more stuff. Alright?"

"OKIE DOKIE."

"So. Do you know how to initiate a fight?"

"NOPE."

"Wh— shouldn't Undyne have taught you that??? Nevermind, ok, so. If you want to initiate a fight, you need to be positioned like so," Ashley moved so that she was a few good paces across from Papyrus and facing him, "and you need to summon a few attacks," she held up a paw and focused, bringing a few balls of flame into existence. "and then, you need to… uhm… I think you need to attack your opponent? Sorry, it's been a minute, heh…" Ashley sent one of the flames into Papyrus's direction, hoping she had remembered right.

Nothing happened.

"UHM. SHOULDN'T THAT HAVE STARTED IT?"

"Yeah. Gimme a sec, I gotta think… uhmmm…." Ashley closed her eyes and rubbed them with her paws. "OH! Oh I remember now! I was kinda right, but you've gotta intend to start a fight, and I was focusing on making the attack hurt less, not summoning the battle UI, my bad. That intent stuff will eat your lunch man, you gotta watch it…"

Ashley flicked her wrist and flung another flame toward Papyrus, this time focusing more on the fact that she needed the battle UI to appear. Just like magic, once she had actually done it right, it worked!

Weird though, the battle UI. It was like a video game in real life. Sometimes they wondered about why the world worked that way. Why were there menus and inventories and hit-points? Why did you have to initiate a fight? Why, when you did, did your surroundings grow dark and you end up in a box, choosing options from some weird menu-bar that appeared by your side?

They didn't like to think on that for too long. It was just how the world worked, it didn't necessarily mean anything.

"SO, SINCE YOU INITIATED, ITS MY TURN FIRST, RIGHT?" Papyrus asked.

Ashley nodded. "Yeah. Depending on who you spar with, you may have different rules, but the basic ones state that whoever initiates a fight goes second, whoever's turn it is not is allowed to dodge, and whoever's turn it is can use whatever attacks they want as long as it is possible to dodge."

"YEAH, SANS EXPLAINED THAT TO ME ONCE."

"Cool. And you know what the different actions do?"

"NOPE."

"Okayyy… So the first one you'll see, it's the one farthest to the left, if FIGHT. If you choose that one, you will then attack. You can use a weapon or your magic. The second one, ACT, allows you to do stuff like talk to your opponent, or just anything that might not be considered directly attacking. It's useful if you get into a real fight and want to de-escalate the situation. ITEM will allow you to access your inventory and use anything in there you want. Finally, MERCY if for when you can spare an opponent or run away. You can spare enemies when the UI shows their name as either yellow or pink. There are regional differences, but usally those are the main two. You got all that?"

"YEP! I THINK SO, ANYWAYS."

"Epic sauce." Ashley grinned. "So whatcha gonna do?"

Papyrus hovered his hand over the FIGHT option for a second, contemplating something, then opted to choose ACT and CHECK. Ashley was pleasantly surprised, usually that was something pointed out after a few fights as a way to gauge how best to go about it. Most monsters never though to try anything other than FIGHT or ITEM.

"YOUR STATS AREN'T VERY GOOD." Papyrus frowned.

"what" Ashley felt her face heat up, and she was thankful she had fur covering it.

"YOUR STATS AREN'T VERY GOOD. YOU HAVE 5 ATTACK, 10 DEFENSE, AND 10 HP. THAT'S NOT REALLY GOOD, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO START WITH 20 HP."

"Yeah but I've got good defense, right?" Ashley forwned. Papyrus shrugged.

"I DUNNO. I JUST KNOW THAT 10 HP IS LOW."

"whatever."

Ashley CHECKED Papyrus. 10 ATTACK, 10 DEFENSE, and 25 HP. LV 1. That was pretty good.

Papyrus's turn. He attacked, and Ashley got hit in the nose with a bone, causing her to fall backward into the snow.

"ARE YOU ALRIGHT?" Papyrus asked anxiously, rushing closer to see.

"'m fine." Ashley groaned, raising a thumbs up. She stood and SPARE-ed Papyrus, ending the fight. "I think that's enough for today. Practice control and intent and stuff. Don't forget to keep that all in mind. Cool?"

"COOL. THANKS FOR TEACHING ME! YOU'RE REALLY GOOD!" Papyrus grinned widely. Ashley rolled her eyes.

"I'm not really that great, but thanks. You're a good student."