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thelanternwielder · 7 years

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Too Late - a Monsuno Fanfic

Author’s note:

Yes, you read the title correctly. I finally wrote fanfiction for Monsuno. This is the first time I ever attempted to write fanfiction. I tried to write it in a way that you could get the gist of the story even if you have never watched an episode of Monsuno.

CW for entire story: Abuse and character death (the chapters those elements appear in are tagged)

Edit 2018/01/02: Part Two can be found >>here<<.

Tell me what you think. Feedback is always appreciated.

Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap.

The sound of keys on keyboard being pressed faintly resonated throughout the aircraft, with an odd tap that had more of a metallic timbre to it.

Everyone on board had gone to bed, except for one.

The source of the tapping came from the ship’s control room. The room itself was large and empty. There were seats near the onboard computer, pushed aside.

The room was lit with the computer’s massive screen. On it were strange maps and satellite images.

Standing before the screen was an old butler. His grey, tired eyes darted to all parts of the screen. Despite it being so late, he was still in his uniform: his tuxedo with a purple bowtie and a backpack-like contraption that gave him two extra robotic arms. The metallic claws hung over his head as he typed away, occasionally moving to press a distant key.

“Where are you?” he mumbled, glancing at the time.

It was 12:04am.

Suddenly, the butler felt a pain in his head. A dull headache.

He stopped typing and rubbed his forehead.

“Blasted headache!” he hissed through gritted teeth.

The headaches had been coming and going for the past month. They were a nuisance, but he didn’t think too much of it.

There were far more pressing issues to worry about than a silly headache.

He went back to typing, slightly slowed. His eyes, again, darted around the screen, scanning all the images as quickly as possible. He looked down to find a key.

He looked to his right.

There was a hand leaning on the console.

The butler followed the black sleeve with his eyes.

There was a person leaning against the console, wearing a long black jacket with red epaulettes. He was bald and had a short beard. He was intensely analysing the screen.

The butler stepped back in start.

“Oh, hello Doctor,” he said, taking a breath, “I didn’t hear you come in”.

The Doctor looked at him and stood up tall.

The butler continued, “Really Sir, you’re becoming more and more like a phantom as time passes. And I have noticed, if you pardon the criticism,” the Doctor raised an eyebrow, “that you have become lax with the time.”

“What is that supposed to mean, Hargrave?” the Doctor asked with disgust. His voice seemed to fill the room with menacing grandeur whenever he spoke.

The butler cleared his throat.

“You said the last time you were here that you would come no later than midnight,” he saw that it was 12:08am, “Last time you came you were meant to arrive at ten to twelve at night but instead came at midnight. And this has been going on since your nocturnal visits began! What is going on?”

The Doctor was taken aback. He wasn’t used to being criticised, especially by his butler. Anger began to simmer inside him.

Hargrave wasn’t finished.

“Besides, why exactly are you even coming here at night? You can come during the day. I mean, the rest of the team miss you. Maybe if they saw – “

“Hargrave!” the Doctor boomed. He glared at the butler. He was breathing heavily, with every breath seething with indignation.

Hargrave seized up. His robot arms recoiled, as if they were part of his body. He knew that look and that rage all too well.

The Doctor approached him, their bodies now mere centimetres of each other. The height difference between the two men became apparent as the Doctor was breathing down on Hargrave. The butler knew that he wasn’t tall, but he felt even smaller than before.

The Doctor leaned in closer, right in Hargrave’s face.

“Do you dare to question me?” the Doctor spat at him.

The butler braced himself. He knew that if he said anything, things would only get worse. He stood there completely still.

“I asked you a question. ANSWER ME!”

Hargrave flinched. He was trying his hardest to not show any emotion, a task made even more difficult when his heart was racing.

He reluctantly and meekly replied, “Yes.”

He looked down at the ground as the Doctor leaned back. The Doctor regarded him with abhorrence.

“You’ve lost your faith in me.”

Hargrave looked up at him aghast, taking a few steps backwards.

“Lost faith? Absolutely not! Such a thing is inconceivable, sir!” he stammered, “I find your most recent actions, well, disturbing. I do not know of what you scheme, nor do I know where you go. As your butler, your safety is my top priority.”

“Enough!”

Hargrave tensed up again.

The Doctor said, “No one need to know what I am doing. Everything will become clear when the time is right. Now, I do not want to hear another question from you about this ever again. Understand?”

“Yes Sir,” the butler bowed obediently.

“Good.”

The Doctor walked back to the screen, looking at the images again. Hargrave sighed with relief. His robot arms seemed to relax with the rest of his body. He was expecting it to be worse than that. Sometimes, the Doctor becomes violent during his tirades. Every so often, he lashes out, mostly with words but he has been more physical in the past. The worst the butler had experienced was when he was locked in a room with the Doctor’s Monsuno.

Monsunos were giant monsters created from mixing a glowing alien essence (appropriately called Monsuno essence) with animal DNA and rocks. They rest within a small hourglass-shaped container made from a light metal and glass called a Monsuno core. When the core is thrown, the monster is released and can stay out until either eight minutes are up or when it is defeated.

Hargrave was just learning how to use the Monsuno the Doctor created for him when he was locked in that room. He wasn’t completely defenceless against the bear-like monstrosity. He was able to deflect some attacks with his robotic arms long enough to figure out how to launch his core.

He shuddered at the memory, blinking back to the present.

“So, Hargrave,” the Doctor began, leaning against the computer console.

“Yes, sir?” Hargrave walked to the screen.

The Doctor stepped back, crossing his arms.

“You haven’t found the perfect location yet, have you?”

“Er, not really,” Hargrave began to type again, “There are surprisingly few plateaus in Mandala, sir. And the only location that really fits what you are looking for is in the Lowlands.”

A top down satellite image of an orange desert with few plateaus was brought up onto the screen. Hargrave looked at his master for approval.

The Doctor grunted, “There’re not nearly high enough.”

“I was afraid you would say that.”

Hargrave began to move the map away from the plateaus to a small hole in the middle of the desert. The Doctor looked at him with a blank expression.

“In other news, I did find one of our old bases. A mere shell of its former self, of course,” Hargrave turned to the Doctor and smiled cautiously, “Do you remember those times? Before you decided to partner with the Forge Resistance. Before you investigated cloning. Before you considered hiring anyone else. When it was the two of us. Us against the world.”

The butler had a wistful expression. He remembered back to when they first founded their little team: Team Eklipse. It was just the Doctor, him and an armada of robots. The Doctor used to create Monsunos as part of his research. He would sell the unwanted ones in the black market. The money was used to continue his research into creating the ultimate weapon. Hargrave admired the Doctor’s intelligence and ambition. He also admired how utterly brutal his master could be to anyone who got in their way of world domination. He was the Doctor’s right-hand man and he never wanted that to change.

He missed those times, especially since they partnered with the Forge Resistance. They were a group of outlaws who were known for their steampunk aesthetic and cybernetic Monsunos. They wanted a world of anarchy and destruction. This seemed contrary to the Doctor’s desires to the butler. He couldn’t see how the two groups could possibly cooperate, but they were. Somehow, the Doctor and the leader of the Forge Resistance, Professor Tallis, found some common ground and were working closely together. There were now two leaders in the group. Hargrave felt like a third wheel as a result.

The Doctor’s expression was still blank.

“Times have changed, Hargrave.”

The butler turned back to the screen, crestfallen. His robot arms drooped slightly. The Doctor moved to his right.

“We needed help taking over the world,” the Doctor explained, “We were being outmatched at every confrontation by our enemies. Now, since we are allied with Forge, we can use their resources and manpower.”

Hargrave turned his head slightly towards the Doctor. He knew what his master meant. One of their enemies, S.T.O.R.M., was an elite government-supported army whose aim was to quash any unauthorised Monsuno activity. Being an army, they had more weapons, more Monsuno and more firepower than the two could ever dream of. They recently allied with another enemy: Team Core-Tech. Team Core-Tech consisted of five children armed with Monsunos. One of the children was the son of a colleague the Doctor previously worked with. He deemed the Doctor to be mad with power and attempted to dissuade future research. Consequently, fighting Team Core-Tech was a far more personal matter than fighting S.T.O.R.M. Ironically, the children were the bigger threat of the two, due to the sheen number of times they have stopped the Doctor’s plans.

Hargrave asked softly, “And what of your plan of becoming a Monsuno Sapien?”

A wicked grin spread across the Doctor’s face. He placed his hand on the butler’s shoulder. Hargrave barely could feel his hand. It was weightless.

The Doctor emitted a dark chuckle.

“That was never off the table,” he whispered, “Merely put on hold. But no more.”

A small twisted smile appeared on Hargrave face.

“And the plateau is part of your brilliant scheme?”

“Of course!”

Hargrave turned back to the screen with a wicked spark in his eyes. The Doctor took his hand off the butler’s shoulder, stepped back and began to watch. Hargrave’s heart fluttered at the possibility of a new insane evil plan, like the ones of the past.

“I shall find you the highest plateau in Mandala, Doctor!” he declared with gusto.

He hammered the keys faster than before. Dozens of images and maps flashed onto the screen.

The Doctor watched with content. Soon he could go back to researching how he could combine human DNA with Monsuno essence. He had seen it been done once before on one of his enemies after an explosion (a “happy accident”, in his words). The result was a teal, monkey-like goliath, smaller but stronger than any other Monsuno. He called it a Monsuno Sapien. He yearned for that kind of power to pump through him, to dominate anyone who dared to challenge him. And after his transformation, he would command an army of Monsunos to take over the world, starting with Mandala.

But he needed a high plateau first, for reasons only known to him.

Meanwhile, two of the crewmembers were up and wandering about in their pyjamas.

One was an extremely tall man with messy spiked black hair and a streak of madness in his eyes. He held a Monsuno core with a brick red glow in his hand, using it as a kind of lantern. The other was not as tall and disgruntled about being woken up at this hellish hour. He wore a thick orange headband to keep his long brown hair off his eyes. The tall one was leading the way in the dark.

“There better be a good reason as to why you’ve woken me up, Dom,” growled the guy with the headband.

The tall man giggled with his high-pitched voice, “Pretty tells me that he’s doing it again, Drezz.”

Dom always calls his Monsunos ‘Pretty’.

“Who’s doing what again?”

Dom paused and turned to Drezz with an unsettling smile.

“You’ll see. Just follow me and be quiet.”

He sped off again. Drezz continued to follow reluctantly. He was still adjusting to Dom’s odd idiosyncrasies. He had to. They were stuck together ever since his leader, Professor Tallis, decided to ally with Dom’s leader, Doctor Klipse. The two groups, Forge Resistance and Team Eklipse, haphazardly combined to become Eklipse Resistance. It was strange to have two leaders.

But nowhere near as strange as Dom Pyro. Drezz was thoroughly convinced that Dom was completely mental. Dom talks to his Monsuno and acts as if it responds. Aside from his eccentricity, he really could understand his Monsuno whenever it ‘spoke’ to him. And he was able to sense when other Monsunos were ‘speaking’.

Some individuals, like him, were born with this psychic ability and can sense a Monsuno’s aura. Unlike him, most who had this ability were completely unaware of it, and of Monsunos for that matter.

“Where are we going?” Drezz asked.

Dom hushed him and gestured to come closer. Drezz, still confused, obeyed. They were in the hallway leading to the airship’s control room. A tapping sound came from the room. Dom pointed to the room with subdued glee. He then used his hand to cover his core’s light. The men peered into the control room. They saw Hargrave was at the computer, with images rapidly appearing and disappearing on the large screen. Drezz shot Dom a puzzled look. He knew that, ever since Dr Klipse and Six (the fourth member of Team Eklipse) went missing a month ago, Hargrave had been staying up late to look for them using the main computer.

Dom whispered, “Wait for it.”

Drezz looked back at Hargrave, still in the dark.

Hargrave threw a picture of a cliff in a clear patch of a rainforest onto the screen. He looked at his master. His master had a neutral expression.

“I know it’s a cliff and not a plateau, sir, but hear me out.”

The butler paused, waiting for permission to continue. The Doctor nodded as a signal to keep going.

“Well, I was thinking,” Hargrave said measuredly, “since you want a high flat piece of land and all of the plateaus I’ve come across aren’t nearly tall enough, this cliff would be a viable alternative.”

“Is it flat?” the Doctor interrupted harshly.

Hargrave hesitated, “It has a gentle incline.”

The Doctor walked up to the screen to scrutinise the picture.

“There’s not nearly enough space.”

“Perhaps we could cut down some of the trees,” Hargrave suggested.

The Doctor glared at him. The butler sheepishly laughed.

“I’ll keep looking then,” he turned back to the computer.

He went back to typing. Tap tap tap.

Drezz turned to Dom again, looking concerned.

“How long has this been going on?” he whispered.

Dom looked at Drezz with a cheeky smirk. He had been trying to contain his laughter.

“Two weeks,” he mouthed, holding up two fingers.

He began to bend over, chortling. He was hissing as much as a boiler that was about to explode. He slid to the ground, caught in a fit of snickering.

“Look at how he prances about!” he wheezed through the laughing.

Drezz glanced back at the butler.

Hargrave was mostly transfixed on the screen, blissfully unaware of what was happening. The images that flashed onto the massive screen has an almost hypnotic effect.

The Doctor spoke in a low tone, “Hargrave.”

Still focused on the task, the butler turned his head so that his ear was facing the Doctor.

“We’re not alone.”

Hargrave froze. He could hear a wheezing, muffled laugh coming from behind him.

He was a deer caught in the headlights.

Drezz realised that Hargrave could hear the laughter.

“Dom,” he hissed, grabbing Dom and shaking him, “Dom! Stop laughing!”

“I can’t!”

Suddenly he erupted with laughter. His core slipped out of his hand. The guffawing echoed through the large control room.

Drezz stood up, somewhat panicked. He glanced back at the butler.

Hargrave turned around and saw the men in the doorway. One was looking back with a shocked expression. The other was on the floor in hysterics.

Drezz turned to Dom, “And you told me to be quiet! Hypocrite!”

Dom tried to control himself as he got up, picking his core up. Hargrave walked towards the men as they entered the room.

Hargrave spoke softly, disheartened by the laughter, “Drezz, Dom Pyro, what are you two doing here?”

Drezz answered with worry, “We were wondering what you were doing.”

Hargrave grunted with scorn and regarded Dom.

“And to mock me, by the sounds of it.”

Still grinning, Dom replied, “You’re always so fun to watch, Clockwork Man.”

He chuckled one last time. The butler was unimpressed.

“So,” Drezz said, “who were you talking to?”

Hargrave raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

“Yes, who were you talking to, Clockwork Man?” Dom parroted.

The butler looked at the men.

“You’re not serious, are you?” he gestured to where the Doctor was with grandeur, “Dr Klipse, of course.”

They looked to where the Doctor was. He was facing the three of them, eerily quiet.

Dom covered his mouth to prevent another giggling fit. Drezz looked back at Hargrave, now even more concerned.

The butler was puzzled by their reactions.

“Hargrave.”

He turned to Drezz.

“There’s no one there.”

He blinked a couple of times. He turned to where the Doctor was.

There was nothing but a vacant space.

Terror shot through the butler.

Still smiling, Dom put his hands on Hargrave’s shoulders. The butler shook as the hands landed heavily. He looked up at Dom who was even taller than the Doctor.

“You’re going mad, Clockwork Man!” Dom said with glee.

There was a mortified silence that hung in the room. Hargrave was completely expressionless.

“Please get off me.”

Dom took his hands off him. Hargrave walked back to the computer. Drezz and Dom exchanged looks. Hargrave leaned against the console with his hands, slumping over. He was staring at the keyboard, still attempting to process what he had done.

“Hargrave?” Drezz called to him.

“Please leave,” he responded politely.

“Maybe you should go to bed.”

Suddenly, Hargrave snapped.

“I said, LEAVE.”

This stunned both Drezz and Dom. Dom’s smile had even disappeared. They exchanged another look.

Hargrave was always so calm and collected, regardless of what was happening. He was steely under stress. He never faltered with his emotions.

The two men left quietly. The room became silent again. It has an air of anxiety to it.

Then Hargrave noticed something: his dull headache had disappeared. In fact, it had vanished when Drezz and Dom entered the room.

When he thought about it more, he noticed a pattern. Every time the Doctor appeared, he always had that dull headache.

But why? He thought.

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his Monsuno.

“The things I do for you, Emmanuel,” he muttered while looking at the core; it lit his face with its brick red glow.

He looked up at the screen, now filled with disappointment. Half of Team Eklipse was still missing. His beloved master was still missing. He was back at square one. He put his core down on the edge of the console. He began to close all the windows that he opened in a flurry during his imagined conversation.

The core’s light seemed to pulsate gently. It was almost soothing.

Suddenly, the light became brighter and brighter with each pulse.

An awful pain shot through Hargrave’s head like a spear. He stopped, completely paralysed. He grasped his head and collapsed onto the console.

The excruciating pain radiated through his entire body. He was shaking, silently suffering. He could barely stand.

He heard a loud booming voice that was all too familiar.

“Find me, you fool!”

It was the Doctor.

Hargrave tried to fight against the pain, weakly lifting his arm. Slowly, he began to press the keys on the keyboard. He brought up the satellite map of Mandala.

He closed his eyes, mashed a bunch of key and pressed enter before fainting on top of the keyboard.

He opened his eyes. He was facing the roof, illuminated solely by the computer screen that was on.

He sat up, rubbing his head. The headache had disappeared. He was no longer in pain, no longer shaking.

Hargrave looked up at the screen. On it was a static satellite image of a giant airship. It was shaped like an aircraft carrier, with dozens of small black and yellow helicopters dotting it. Among the helicopters was a blue one. The people one the massive airship resembled ants.

The butler got up and narrowed his eyes.

His jaw dropped when he realised what he was looking at.

It was a S.T.O.R.M. Cloud Carrier, a base of operations in the sky for the army. A flying fortress.

He glanced at his core for a moment.

Could this be a sign? He wondered, an awful omen?

It had to be. There was no other feasible explanation.

Hargrave was filled with horror at the realisation.

“Oh, my lord! They’ve been captured!”

His body was flooded with guilt and shame. It was churning through his body. A horrible image appeared in his head of the Doctor being locked up deep within the armoured weaponised ship, key thrown away, heavily guarded by black and yellow soldiers, never to see the light of day again.

He felt powerless.

How could I let the Doctor get captured, he thought, by our enemies, no less?! I should’ve been there to save him!

He felt weak, sickened to the core. The butler grabbed one of the nearby chairs. He slumped onto it, head in hands. His robot arms drooped with the rest of his body.

It was my job to protect him, the thought repeated over and over in his head, it was my job to protect him.

The soft brick red light of Hargrave’s Monsuno core pulsated calmly. It seemed to slow its pulse, almost out of pity, as the man began to weep.

#monsuno #fanfic #I wrote this in two days and was determined to finish it within 2017 #this was fun to write

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