i hope that our few remaining friends give up on trying to save us [open]

[determinedest]

Who: Frisk + Chara and YOU
Where: In the mansion, on the beach, all around!
When: April 1st - April 3rd
Rating: PG-13 at least, for blood, death, killing, and emotional distress
Summary: Two kids with the power to bend time in varying states of emotional flux.
The Story:

a; i hope the fences we mended fall down beneath their own weight ( emotionless chara + emotional frisk )

Frisk has grown accustomed to the guilt weighing at the pit of their chest like a pall, the sick and heavy feeling of intimate wrongness that comes with remembering any SAVE, any LOAD, any RESET. That’s just part of being them. What they’re not used to is waking up flooded with it.

Their breathing hitches, curling tight around themselves on their bed to keep from making a sound and disturbing their roommates - their roommates, who have both tried to kill them, who have killed everyone they’ve ever loved and now they’re living with them and trying to act like it’ll all be all right and that they can SAVE them, like that’s possible, or even desirable. What are they thinking? What are they doing?

They bite their tongue. They bite the wall of their cheek. They make a fist with one hand and bite their knuckles, but it’s not enough. The tears well up and start leaking out from both eyes, and it isn’t long before their body starts shaking with poorly-concealed sobs. What’s wrong with them? Why, why now?

They need to get out of here.

Frisk scrambles awkwardly out of their bed, stumbling toward the door, but they can’t even make it that far. Wracked with guilt, an utterly worthless, pointless, stupid feeling that doesn’t accomplish anything or even help anyone, and paralyzed by a shiver at something chill and wrong prickling at the back of their neck.

There’s something here. Something they felt pressing, straining at the seams of their skin at the end of that golden corridor.

* It’s me, Chara.

It's them.

The fleeting sensation of a number increasing. Of trading attachment for power. That feeling.

"Chara."

Frisk doesn't make it to the door, too crushed beneath guilt and despair. But someone else closes that distance. Their hand rests on the door. They smile at it, and it’s the smile that made an innocent monster kid tremble. The smile that made Flowey fear them. Empty-eyed, but as radiant as a star. The look of an angel.

Their eyes slide down to the sobbing, wracked figure on the floor. They tilt their head to one side, a grotesque, unnerving parody of sympathy. They look away again, push the door open, step out into the hallway. Chara knows exactly what it is they are going to do, and the pathetic lump paralyzed on the floor cannot stop it. So. Mockingly. They call. They do not use a name, the name Frisk fought so hard to reclaim, but they call nonetheless.

"Partner."

They don’t even look to see if Frisk follows. If that guilt spurs them to action or keeps them pinned down. They just keep going, trying all the doors they come across, beginning a methodical room-by-room sweep of the mansion. That EXP, after all, isn’t going to reap itself.

b; and i hope we hang on past the last exit ( emotionless chara + emotionless frisk )

They’ve made it outside. Chara still continues at their relentless pace, barely seeming to register a single word. They’re barely here, in every sense of the world. A wrathful ghost squirming in someone else’s shell. A voice that only Frisk can hear. Not the words that shook as Toriel blocked the way or as Asriel readied "STAR BLAZING," but something terse and viciously red.

Determination vs. Determination. They’ve been playing it again, though a bit differently than they did in the Underground. Whether the body Chara controls right now is Frisk or themself or some outside entity they’ve convinced everyone is Chara Dreemurr, they neither know nor care. Only that it is theirs to steer completely, and no amount of pleading or tugging changes that. And they know, without a moment of hesitation or worry, what the outcome will be. What it always would have been. What it will be, once this all ends and they return Underground.

Frisk gives up.

Everything recedes. Everything fades. just give up. i did, the Lost Soul intones, and why didn’t they? By the end of that long, dusty road, they’d just hovered at the edge of someone else’s story and watched it all play out in a skin that never really belonged to them. They died when they fell into those golden flowers. This was never their story.

So why even try?

They can’t tell if it’s an intentional surrender or if that strange rush of LOVElike feeling creeps up on them unawares, but they know that they just have to keep moving, have to be an unstoppable force, and that immovable object Frisk’s mercy pretends to be will crumble. They’ll cease to care, they’ll tell themself that they aren’t the one doing anything wrong if they just… let Chara handle all of it.

* Won’t you, partner?

They stop, not really registering where they even are. The hiss of ocean waves does not reach them. The feeling of sunshine does not warm them. The spring breeze does not even exist. Without looking up, without even casting an eye to their fretful little shadow, they decide to test it out. To gauge where they stand. Exactly how much of an anomaly they are right now.

"Partner," they again call.

Frisk looks up, their expression closed to that familiar blankness. A toy knife, a number. A value ticking ever upward. Hadn’t they forgotten what that was like?

"What?" they say, dully.

Chara wants to laugh. Their smile twists in a way that… well, I won’t even grace it with a description. Ah. Here we are! "I am finally ready to let you help me," they announce, and they let their gaze sweep over their surroundings with a keen, predatory interest. There’s something worth taking out here. There’s power to be sought.

And they’ll do it together, right?

c; i hope it's already too late ( emotional chara + emotionless frisk )

What a blessed, blissful relief it is not to care as much as they always did, to not bat an eye at the stupid antics of a pair of skeletons or an irritating gadfly of a scientist. Just march onward, human, head held high. The monsters that come after you all want you dead - why else would they be aiming for your SOUL? It’s kill or be killed.

There’s only one way you survive in this world, and it’s through being stronger than the ones who want to put you in the ground. There was never any choice here. Haven’t they always known that?

Because it’s better.

Guilt just boils away at you until there’s nothing left, and what do you have to gain from it? Nothing tangible, or real.

And what do you have to do to fix everything?

Just...stop caring.

Lucky Frisk.

Chara, so far, has been unstoppable. Has been in control. But the power to distance themselves isn’t quite so compliant for them anymore. They can feel the walls starting to splinter, can feel a horrible something pressing at the edges of their mind. And they cannot understand it at all.

They shoot a startled, tense look at Frisk as it batters at their consciousness, starts to erode the false LOVE that had kept them at arm’s length. The flat, absent look on their partner’s face offers no answer whatsoever. This isn’t right, is it? They’re not supposed to be the one who feels. If they’re feeling, then it’s supposed to be because Frisk’s spilling over, right? The lines of the anomaly are blurring? But, no, that’s right. Separate. Different shells, different people. They… this must be them? It can’t be them. Why are they like this?

"Partner," they call for a third time, but their voice rattles. "Frisk," they try. "We’re going."

Of course they are. All they’ve been doing is going, roaming in search of encounters. Stupid. "Far away," they blurt, and they feel the empty space within splintering more and more, and an emotion they’ve forgotten how to put a name to starting to leak into their chest. They seize Frisk’s wrist. (Too tightly. Always too tightly.) They don’t know where, but they start running. Somewhere nobody can see. Somewhere they can outrun… this. Outrun themselves.

d; i am drowning, there is no sign of land ( emotional chara + emotional frisk )

The guilt’s back again. Why’d they ever let it fade? That’s their fault, isn’t it? It’s always their fault, all of it - who lives, who dies, what gave them the right to decide anything like that? Their throat tightens, all stiff and taut with clamped-down emotion as they struggle not to break down like the did this morning, before everything...faded. That had almost been preferable to this.

And Chara - Chara changed. Chara acted - odd, like someone else, almost. They look toward them, as if seeking counsel from the only person they know can understand, if only because they’ve always been there, right from the start.

"Chara?" The name’s not colored red, but it might as well be.

They’re coiled in on themselves, tense and rigid, but they flinch when Frisk calls their name. Chara turns their head away, knuckles white as their death grip around the locket somehow manages to gain a little more pressure. Frisk… sounds like themself again. Frisk sounds guilty. It hits them with a dull thud, another weighty stab in a system that’s tearing itself up with grief, remorse, horror, all the things that absolutely shouldn’t be able to exist within them.

It’s just one of a thousand names, right? Could be anything. Frisk’s calling the demon, and just a few short hours ago, they would have laughed. Now, the laughter squirming in their chest feels as corrosive as buttercups, and they bite it down so hard they can taste blood. They think they’re going to be sick.

"Don’t," they insist. "I’m not here. We’re not here. Nobody’s going to find us." They’d lost track of where they were, and even now, the rustle of wind through foliage feels faraway and unreal, and the dirt beneath them somehow feels unstable. They don’t know what time it is. How long they pulled Frisk along. How long they’ve been feeling. But… it’s not real, right? They just have to wait it out. It’ll fade. Everything fades. And nobody will know, and nobody will see, because.

Because. Haha. Do they have to say it?

"But nobody came," they whisper, voice so strange and tense they hardly recognize it as their own.

e; you are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand ( chara )

By the third day, Chara is alone.

Their emotions are blissfully absent again. They wear their smile almost serenely. They don’t intend to slip up again; this time, their control won’t slide in the least. They’ll make sure of it.

They’re roaming again. The same restless march of their most unfeeling moments. Searching for EXP. Searching for LOVE. Enough to eradicate any trace of feeling. Enough to completely bury the pitiful, detestable thing that shook and laughed under the weight of its own regrets.

Stay away from them, if you know what’s good for you.

Comments

e

[ngah]

Undyne feels only outrage and restlessness. She was too impatient to put on the armor she wished out of her closet, so she's marching barefisted down hallways. She's tried to calm down by letting off steam at the beach, yelling angrily into the ocean, but the sea doesn't talk back and she's sure the fish swimming around could hardly hear her, let alone understand her. Now, back inside, she seizes mirrors off the walls and inspects them, leaves them forgotten on the floors.

She's putting one down now, unsatisfied with what it's shown her, when she sees Chara coming from the opposite way. Of all the people to run into. Normally, she may bitterly ignore their presence, but right now a rush of anger and suspicion fills her and she yells after them.

"Hey! What are you doing!?" Probably up to no good.

[fulllifeconsequences]

* The heroine appears.

Except that's not quite right, is it? She's not the formidable opponent she could be, if only pushed properly. Like this, she's easy. A joke. A minor obstacle.

Chara pauses their heavy, mechanical walk. They don't look up at Undyne. It may seem, at first, like they did not even hear her. But beneath the curtain of their bangs, beneath their bowed head... they smile.

Encounter spotted.

They don't even grace her question with an answer. They just draw a knife. The knife. Not a switchblade taken off an attacker's corpse. Not the flimsy blades the closets spit out. The weapon they're meant to have. A blade that glows as red as Asgore's trident, as if it too possesses the power to cut through reality, to smash mercy itself.

The Real Knife.

Their slow, deliberate approach starts up again. They lift their head, and fix their eyes on Undyne. Softly, as if reciting a joke to themselves, the offer up the only response Undyne is going to get, one that paints their intent as clear as day:

"In my way."

[ngah]

Undyne wasn't sure what she was expecting, but it wasn't this. Maybe some part of her was hoping for it. An easy target to lock onto, an easy villain for her to fight. Her eyes widen when they pull out the knife, but she doesn't take a step back. She takes a step forward. When they speak, she summons a spear that glows blue.

Something about them right now is familiar. Undyne shakes her head to rid herself of the thought. Ideas like that hardly ever served her well.

She purposefully walks toward Chara, as they walk toward her, but she cuts the reunion short when she summons two more spears and all three descend upon them. She quickly summons another so she has something in her hand to squeeze.

"You bet I am!"

[fulllifeconsequences]

Repetitive. Effortless.

A shift to the left, with agility that belies the disinterested sluggishness of their approach. Their free hand shoots out, snatches the nearest spear right out of the air. They doubt that she'll give them one to block with when she turns them green this time, so they just take it for themselves. They stand, for a moment. The dull red glow of the Real Knife in one hand, the Echo Flower-blue shine of her spear in the other.

Then, they lunge. Put on a sudden burst of speed, and aim to carve the knife right through her in a ruthless, focused swing. No challenge, no pleading, no checking. No fun and games running into her attacks on purpose, just to watch her get annoyed. No absurd jokes about banning anime just to rile her up.

Nothing left in them, now, but unstoppable, hideous intent.

[ngah]

In the anime she watches, protagonists often say they can feel their evil foe's killing intent. Undyne thinks she might understand that now.

It's automatic when she holds her spear up to guard. Something about that red knife scares her. Something tells her... it could kill her in one strike. The thought only excites her more. She grins dangerously, pushing the knife away.

Glowing blue spots litter the floor around Chara's feet.

"So you're serious now...! So am I!"

She knows it won't finish them, not after they dodged her other attack so easily. No, she's just keeping them busy. Once the spears from the ground shoot up and fade away, she'll turn them green.

b (for frisk)

[fulllifeconsequences]

They don't actually feel an ounce of triumph, of course. None of this had ever been satisfying. It had always just been means to an end.

An end that Wonderland will deny them, they're sure. The power to ERASE has been stripped away utterly, even as this world lends them its LOVE. Still, it must be for a purpose that they have been given this strength. This freedom. And now, at last, Frisk is giving in. How effortlessly pacifism crumbles against someone truly determined, huh?

They, of course. They know how to make the most of what little they get. While this moment is theirs, they will not let it go to waste.

"You have been lying to me for far too long, partner," Chara observes. "And I am sure you thought yourself righteous because of it. However. I think it is time to outgrow these childish feelings of self-satisfaction."

They turn on Frisk. They smile. They utter three quiet, precise words.

"The Worn Dagger."

[determinedest]

Why even try? Why do anything? Why, because it was asked of them. It's so terribly easy to slip into that role of complacent observer, tailing their murderous partner as they carve their way through the Underground, or Wonderland, or whatever. Frisk shrugs lifelessly. Under any other circumstances, Chara's words would sting like a cut from a spear or a flung bone. But Frisk's expression is completely locked into indifference, and it stays that way, waiting for Chara's command.

Isn't that just how it should be?

"I buried it." The point in the vague direction of the beach, the wind stirring up little veins of sand, sharp and littoral with salt.

[fulllifeconsequences]

They buried it.

Chara laughs, and the sound is gruesome. Not the tense, high laughs of buttercups instead of cups of butter, but a low, dry sound. Like the wind stirring up sand. Snow. Dust. It's all the same. It's all the dessicated noise of a death rattle.

Of course. Of course. They put Chara's weapon exactly where Chara belongs. Underground. Sleeping in the soil.

* How poetic.

"You will take me to it," Chara tells Frisk. Because it's so much easier to just do what you're told, right? To follow the rules instead of inventing your own. To put the responsibility on another set of shoulders entirely.

And Chara will bear that weight, of course. But it means they will take. They will demand a price. They will use the power that Frisk passively hands to them. They will utilise this moment of weakness to the utmost, and they will not allow it to be taken back. No RESET will fix Frisk's perfect narrative anymore!

"You will return it to its rightful owner. It's wrong to steal."

[determinedest]

Frisk says nothing. They turn, and walk, retracing their steps numbly, mechanically, until they reach the foot of a round, smooth stone halfway-embedded in the sand. Drop onto your knees. Dig your hands into the ground, scraping away the wet grains of sand even as they chafe your fingers and dig under your nails and scrape your skin.

Isn't there a joke about two kids who played in the dirt? It doesn't seem quite so important now. And anyway, Frisk isn't laughing. Chara can laugh enough for the both of them, and they can be responsible for whatever happens next.

Eventually their hand hits it, the worn-away pommel, and they uproot the dagger by the hilt. They barely look at it. It doesn't inspire anything in them anymore. Instead they lift it up, offering it to their partner like one might offer a pretty sea shell or a piece of brightly colored glass to a friend.

c, before the fight

[punful]

He came out here to hide. The woods have always been his go-to place for that sort of thing. It's not like the woods outside of Snowdin are exactly endless, but there are certainly a lot of nooks and crannies and hidden clearings and meadows. It's good for those days when you just can't handle people or life itself and need to get away for a few hours. One of the first things he did when he came to Wonderland was find a few good places like that. You never know. The depression and all the rest of it doesn't go away just because there aren't technically Resets here.

The Reset is always coming, after all. And it was never just about Resets, anyway.

It's so stupid. He feels so stupid. Even knowing it's an event, that everyone else is going through the same thing--it doesn't help. It doesn't help, because your own mind really is always your worst enemy, and rational thought and reason are the first things to go out the damn window. But Sans is supposed to be controlled. That's his whole thing. Crying solves nothing, it does absolutely nothing. He cried the first few times he found Papyrus dead, or at least he's pretty sure he did--he must have, right?--and those first few timelines, that long period where he had to get used to the idea that this was going to be how the world worked now...

Sure, he lost control plenty of times, wound up breaking down in his room or right in front of Papyrus, wound up telling the whole thing to Grillby because he got too drunk one or two or five nights. But the Resets kept happening, and time kept, in an oxymoronic way, marching onward. And Sans got used to it, and everything went grayish around the edges, desaturated, muted, blurred. Quiet.

At least it was a nice middle ground. At least it wasn't bursting into tears at the mere thought of losing Papyrus again, and at least it's not having everything so grayed out that Sans feels capable of anything, even tracking down Chara, and Frisk and the flower for good measure, putting a few bones through them. Waiting for them to come back and do it again. The rules are different here. Five lives, five deaths and then, well, at least then something changes. Kill them enough times and hell, maybe things really will stop. For once.

He can't do that, though. Won't. Doesn't want to. Whatever.

So he's been hiding. And here he thought he'd found a pretty good place for this latest bout of guilt and terror and marrow-deep sorrow. He must not have been thinking clearly enough, though, because now he hears voices. Voices he recognizes. The last two people he wants to see right now. Whispering to each other, sounding scared and traumatized. The wrong voice full of emotion.

Seems like Chara and Frisk are both having a bad time. Like anything was ever going to be any different.

Sans picks himself up from whatever tree he was hiding behind and goes to find them. He won't switch the emotions off, not yet, not until he knows for sure whether he...

...whether he needs to.

Chara is tugging Frisk along through the trees, looking like a hunted animal. Frisk looks...blank. Sans knows that look.

You've been busy.

He follows them for a few paces before he speaks up. That's the way these things are done.

"hey."

What are they out here for? What are they looking for? What are they up to? God, he hates this. Suspicious, reckless, proactive.

[determinedest]

Frisk looks up without much surprise. Oh, look. Someone new.

"Hey," they say, out of tired reflex, that standard call-and-response thing that every human and monster seemed to have going for them. Chara's acting strange. They would've thought Chara would be happy, with the Real Knife in hand and all. But they can't bring themselves to be overly concerned about it. What's it matter, anyway? People are going to die no matter what they do.

[fulllifeconsequences]

No. Not now. No no no no.

He's there. Of course it's Sans. Of course it is. He's always following, always the eerie branch shattering in the woods, always the ringing of judgment bells, always a hooded figure watching from afar and promising they'll be dead where they stand. Frisk answers without hesitation or dread, but Chara jolts to a halt like Sans had just fired a rifle in their direction. They plant themselves in front of Frisk, one hand still tight as a manacle around their wrist but the other diving toward their back pocket, toward the knife.

"Go away," they calmly suggest. Except that it's not a calm suggestion at all. They scream it, and even they flinch, like they had forgotten they were capable of making noise, like it's a surprise that anyone but Frisk hears it. It's not composed, it's not in control, it's not trying to plan four steps in advance. Everything is shaking, slipping out from their fumbling fingers, chased away by the crushing advance of this... of...

They. They can't even put a name to this! It's supposed to be Frisk's! Not theirs! They aren't even capable of feeling like this! And yet it chews up their edges. And yet it's crawling up their back even as they wrench the Real Knife free and hold it, trembling and unsteady. It's fear that shakes their hand, they know that, but it's not fear that makes them unstable and unprepared and just not able to do this. It's the unfamiliar something that's making their breathing go as funny as Asgore's did back during their battles.

They try to smile.

The knife is enough, right? It'll scare him. It'll scare him off.

[punful]

The sheer volume startles him, genuinely startles him, enough so that he takes a step back. Right. Right, of course, this event is affecting everyone after all, even Chara. Uncontrolled emotions followed by controlled bouts of dim gray.

Any other day, any other mental state and he would be all over this, using it to his advantage, telling Chara that demons aren't supposed to feel, now are they? That they don't have as much LOVE as they think they do, that they're not as distant as they want to be. It's not about saving Chara, certainly not. He doesn't care if Chara ends up redeeming themselves or not. It doesn't matter. What always mattered was that if Chara starts believing they can actually be a person, then they might be less inclined to start carving their way through Wonderland. Then they might be less inclined to kill the people Sans cares about. Again.

Stupid. Doesn't matter. It'll just Reset anyway, or something else will go wrong--something like this, an event that makes everything spiral out of everyone's control.

This event is going to cost lives. He knows it.

Maybe his own. He knows that knife. Didn't really remember it until just now. His hand goes to his chest briefly, as if feeling for a wound that isn't there but might as well be. He can't help it. He can't help anything right now.

"so." He tries to steady his breathing. "so. heh. no one's having a great time right now, huh?"

He holds a hand out, palm toward Chara as if to ward them off.

"just...calm down. i don't want to--" He stops. Heightened emotions doesn't mean he can't still lie, can't still choose his words wisely. More wisely than that, at least. "i'm not here to fight. not here for either of you. just..."

He lowers his hand.

"just...some advice." That's the script, right? He can't remember. It's close enough. "maybe stay out here. both of you. till this blows over. away from people."

He glances over at Frisk. Oh, that look, that look of total indifference, emptiness, like there's nothing but LOVE watching from behind those eyes.

That scares him a lot more than the knife.

"can't let this get to our heads, right?"

He's looking at Frisk when he says it.

e you feel like you're going to have a bad time

[punful]

They killed Undyne.

They killed her, and the only thing he can think is that it's out of order. Papyrus isn't dead yet. Papyrus was just here. Sans would know if Papyrus was dead or not.

It's not that he cares. Not right now. And that hurts, actually, in a sort of physical way. He didn't think it was possible to really, for real, not care about his own brother. But here he is.

Honestly, it's just easier for now, because it lets him be completely rational. Stripped of that whole desire to just lie there and let things happen around him, let everyone die and let the whole world come to an end, because what's the point? He never really thought of it before, but there's a vast difference between "i don't care" and "i don't care." It's a gulf, a chasm. You can tell yourself you don't care as an excuse to not move, to lie there and stare at the ceiling, wondering how many times your brother has died now, but that's all it really is. An excuse.

Depression really is different from not having emotions at all.

Rational. The rational thing to do is to find the kid. Kill them now. Kill them as many times as he can, as fast as he can. Because if Undyne's dead, even out of order, Papyrus is on the list. Sooner or later it'll be Papyrus. And this time Sans can actually stop it. Maybe this once.

It's really too bad about Undyne. He'll feel bad about that later.

Right now he has a murderer to find.

It's not difficult. Even now, even here, some things are predictable, and Sans has always been good at math. Simple calculations.

He finds them in the entranceway. That seems appropriate somehow. It's not quite as poignant as the golden hallway, but who cares?

"human. i've got a question for you."

about to have a less than ideal circumstance

[fulllifeconsequences]

The poetic aptness of the location is lost on them. They barely even hear the question. Redundant dialogue. Heard it before. Skip it.

They advance a step.

They should fear this, maybe. Their pulse should quicken under the knowledge that he's killed them more than anyone, that he was the only one they never got past, that if he appears then it's absolutely too late to turn back on this dust-strewn road.

But they don't. LOVE wraps itself warmly around them, and it all feels muffled and faraway from within that cozy layer of utter detachment. Why bother? The end is what matters. The means it takes to get there, the things that happen along the way... just background noise, all of it.

He won't get an answer to his question. They make it clear before it's even asked. No, bad people can't change. Yes, they want to have a bad time. Been there. Done that. Bored with the script.

"Get right to the point," they tell him. Might as well get straight to that same old pattern, right? Blue, drop, ground bones, red, short wave, Blaster sequence 4-4-4-2, tried and true. So thoroughly practiced that Chara can even call it easy.

a crummy juncture

[punful]

Of course. They care about as much as Sans does. Which is to say, not at all.

He grins, because smiling is simple, easy, something you can do without needing to feel anything. And if there's anything Sans has truly perfected, it's a smile.

This is for the best. This makes sense. Like slipping into a comfortable old coat. And it's even completely painless this time, none of that lingering loss and grief and all those other emotions still hanging around from watching everyone and everything he ever cared about be destroyed.

Doesn't even matter. Never did. Matters even less here, even less now.

"you're right. no point in a script, right?"

It's a beautiful day outside. Or, whatever. It's a day.

And the eye sparks to life.

It feels like driving a nail into his skull, always does, too much magic too suddenly, but who cares, who cares, who cares.

He turns their soul blue, wrenches the shattered mess from their chest. Puts that weight on them, drops them down, the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. Bones erupt from the ground like deadly flowers.

His hand drops and their soul is released, but it's not a respite, no, he's not one for that. Not really one for Mercy. Be relentless. Be the immovable object to meet the unstoppable force.

Twin waves of bones rush toward Chara, from above and below. A short wave, sine wave, took years and all sorts of math to perfect that one, to get it right. Every individual bone filled with KR.

He can sort of remember the look on their face that first time, the very first time, when the wave ends and there's a split second when they think that's it, and then they see them, something new and horrifying and impossible, and since when did this small, annoying skeleton have power like that?

Four Gaster Blasters, jaws open, eyesockets glowing. Much more solid than any monster bullet, almost alive. The beams box Chara in. Four more, before the first have even disappeared, forcing the human to move and dodge. Four to box the anomaly back in, pin them right where he wants them.

Two last ones to end it. Almost impossible to avoid.

Almost.

All told it lasts about seven seconds. Sans wonders distantly how many times they died in those first seven seconds.

"here we go."

things are not going to go the way you want them to

[fulllifeconsequences]

Predictable. Just numbers. A routine they've seen so many times they're utterly desensitized. Did they ever feel anything here? Did they recoil in dread at the endless agony of bones jutting through their flesh, or had death been reduced to a minor setback already? When they looked to their partner for guidance, even as they plotted their own judgment, sought to back them into a corner... what had been there?

Impatience, they think.

It had never been fun. Not for long, anyway. Novelty fades, things that die in one hit only earn dull disinterest, satisfaction only comes when the numbers increase. When they can say the achievement is under their belt. When they see what happens.

So what is there now? They already know what happens here. Blue. They jump. Flawless timing. Red. They weave. Less flawless, despite their practice, and their arms are going to bloom with bruises in the places where the wave of bones dug into them. Karma sinks its bright pink claws into them. Four Blasters, and they know what they're called, the name slides into their mind. Even if it shouldn't, even if it's as buried as the True Name had been.

They're steered along where Sans wants them, herded like a sheep as the searing heat of the blasts box them in. But even that is tired, is predictable, is just a checklist of steps to follow. Alternating right angles and diagonals, until the last two. At the last two, they advance, the back of one leg burned raw by the edge of the ray.

There's no food to replenish their HP here. There's no coming back over and over, until you figure out that dying isn't a punishment, that the inability to really die is. There's going to be a point where it stops being practiced, where he offers mercy and this time Chara doesn't accept, and the unknown will surely bury them. They'll die here. He'll be the thing that stops them again.

Oh well.

Seven seconds pass, and they still emerge from it. They charge at him headlong, they come in swinging, the Real Knife trailing motes of white light. Doesn't matter. Won't hit. Never does. But something's got to advance the dialogue.

e ; and i hope you die, i hope we both die

[sciencelizard]

Alphys has spent the majority of this event in her room, away from the carnage and encounters. When you spend your life looking over your shoulder for imagined slights, afraid of phones ringing and words spoken and rushing water down to the abyss of a dump, emotional loss sounds like bliss, and it is. It takes all of 15 minutes for her to begin working; every idea she's ever had creeping at her consciousness held back by fear, every plan she's ever scrapped for worry it would fall into the wrong hands, and with a few monotone requests to the closets she's building... and building, and building, and building. It's been more than a day, she recognizes, but she's all but lost track of how long she's been secluded until she emerges for more food, having just finished the last of a stockpile. Still scribbling, accounting for notes, thinking of things to deliver to some people she's been working with. She shakes of something creeping up her spine that says she should be more worried. Clarity breeds innovation. And for once, she's willing to create.

She only looks up when her bare foot brushes over a different texture on the floor, and she looks down to see blood, and quite a bit of it. Arms slowly lowering, she readjusts her glasses and steps in closer to the scene, hands already drifting to the pocket of her coat where a prototype flash bomb rests. Self-preservation is an instinct, one she's much more likely to follow when she's not overwhelmed. She can almost feel the fear pricking at the back of her mind, but it's consumed by the void as she continues to observe the scene. Breaks in the floor, the walls, blood on each one, and something occurs to Alphys that these look familiar, why, they almost look like spears, and--

She looks down. Notices her most recent step is dusty. And loses control.

The whiplash almost hurts when she collapses, whipping out her communicator to contact Undyne, knowing exactly what happened but still screaming when there's no answer. The tears and anguish come freely and before she knows it she's running back to her room, slamming the door again, heart pounding and mind racing. There's only one person who could've done that, she knows, and they've threatened her before, what if they come for her, what if they're still looking, what if they know what if they know--

She tries to force her emotions down but they just keep coming, fear and sadness and helplessness, but for some reason it's all dwarfed by anger. Anger at herself for not doing anything, anger at Chara for targeting Undyne, anger that's been held down about everyone who's ever slighted her, who's ever told her she's worthless, from being threatened in the tea room and that light laughter like she's being mocked, and suddenly she knows what she wants to do. No fear anymore. No being stopped.

So she loads up on everything she's made, every bit of it, and when she tracks Chara down she's regained some composure. But she wants to feel this. She's afraid but she knows how to push down the fear. She doesn't know how to push down the rest. So she smacks her foot on the ground, stands tall, and screams.

"Chara!"

[fulllifeconsequences]

They don't respond right away.

Everything is faraway like this. Muted, distant, muffled. The True Name ceases to feel like the True Name. Just a temporary string of letters, a default, a placeholder. Nonetheless. Someone has called the demon, and so the demon comes. They halt. Slowly, with lifeless, shuffling steps, they turn around.

It's not a pretty sight. Their hands are coated with dust. The Real Knife glows a foreboding red, and the Locket beats against their chest. Their clothing is torn and bloodied. They cant their head to one side and smile, but it has long since ceased to be rosy-cheeked and cute to look at. It's ghastly. Distorted. Inhuman.

Oh. Her.

Novelty. Off-script. She's not hiding anymore.

Chara does not see her as the woman who loved Undyne with all her heart. The monster they intimidated, the person they assumed the very worst of before she even had a chance to prove herself. They see only a target, a bundle of EXP that they never had the chance to harvest before. She stands straighter than they've ever seen her stand before, and they know that finally, at last, it's going to be kill or be killed.

They take a single step forward.

"Alphys."

[sciencelizard]

For once, Alphys is trying to hold on to her anger, despite the surge of panic at seeing Chara's face like this. But their hands are dusty and her hands are tight. It's time to do something. Words that aren't quite hers are echoing in her mind somewhere, promises she didn't keep, knowing all too clearly what has to be done. She can manage the fear. She does it every day. But not this.

"H-How dare you!" Her breath still hitches, her stutter still there, but she's loud, making herself bigger, reaching towards prominence. She has a small thought about what Undyne would say if she could see her now. But she knows what Undyne would do if she was here, and she wouldn't let them get away with it.

"If y-you don't think I don't know, w-what you did--" Her hands are balled into fists, and she takes a step forward, too. "I w-won't let you! I won't l-let you hurt anyone, e-ever again!"

She's biting back tears, but she doesn't have time to worry if her threats are effective. Promises, promises after all. If she thinks too hard about any of it, she'll lose her nerve. So she's letting the anger, the pain, the hurt carry her this time.

They'd find her eventually, anyway. It's kill or be killed.

[fulllifeconsequences]

They aren't listening.

She's been more brave and reckless than she's ever been, and Chara doesn't even acknowledge a single word. They just continue their methodical steps forward. Closer. Closer.

It's foolish of her. It won't do any good. Didn't anyone explain that they all get five lives? Ever again is a naive concept. She's setting herself up for everything to crash down around her. As usual.

Well. Let her learn the hard way. Let her deal with the consequences, one way or another. They doubt she'll be much challenge. Mettaton NEO was what she sent when she really wanted to stop them, and he was a joke. Alphys herself was only good for cowering, avoiding, setting up thin excuses.

They hold the knife in front of them, poised and prepared. They shift into a practiced, ready stance. They wear their rigid, horrible smile.

"You're making another mistake, Alphys." That's all they'll deign to give her. Not a warning, barely even a taunt -- they don't have enough interest left within them for taunts. Merely a bored observation of inevitable fact. She will come to regret this, and regret it bitterly. Just like everything else she ever fooled herself into thinking she could do.

d

[krmvgivv]

It's nice, not having feelings. Dipper has always prided himself on being guided by his head, rather than his heart, but now, with his heart not in the way, he can actually see that it's never been as true as he thought it was. Worry for Mabel or himself, love or wanting to impress someone he loved, rage, so much rage, always clouding his judgment. But that's gone now. All he's got now is the refreshing calmness of reason, keeping his head cool and his heart still.

He frowns, when he sees Chara and Frisk. A tickle in the back of his chest urges him to turn his emotions back on, to see if this is something that might make him feel something, but no. He's dealt with Chara enough to know it's probably a trap, and there's nothing like emotions for making a trap worse.

So he approaches cautiously instead, stopping a reasonable distance away. "What's wrong?" Not that it matters much to Dipper. But his curiosity is as strong as ever. It's just the emotions clouding it are gone.

[determinedest]

Frisk has at least had some time to adjust to the choking wave of guilt and regret, but Chara looks like they've been floored by the sheer strength of it. Someone who always pretends not to feel, suddenly feeling too much. No wonder they're unbalanced, unstable, not making sense.

"Ch-Chara's not - not really adjusting so, so well," Frisk stammers. They're trembling, and they only realize after the fact that they've dropped into a crouch beside their counterpart. Their partner. Oh god, they gave them the Dagger. They gave them the Dagger. Or should they say the Real Knife?

The tears start to choke everything else, the lump swelling in their throat.

"Th-they - " They can't finish the sentence. They don't even know what they were about to say. They just crumble.

[fulllifeconsequences]

God, no. Not now. Not somebody who knows them, even just a little bit. They can't make a joke of it when they're like this. They can't smile as they prod and nudge, as they drop reminder after reminder that he won't find anything worthwhile in them, that he's just setting himself up for hurt by getting anywhere near them. They both know that anything Chara would ask would be far too much, because everything about them is far too much.

But Dipper speaks up, but Frisk answers, and it's barely even an answer before it starts to get swallowed by sobbing. There's no more being unseen and unheard, just a whisper in a single person's head. Chara has to deal with it somehow.

(They think about the knife that they have on them, that nothing will take from them, and the very fact that it's the first thing they think of makes their throat tighten. Why is that the first thing they think of?)

"Crybaby," they choke out, though they can't quite meet Frisk's eye. Big kids don't cry. Be tougher than that, or it'll be taken advantage of. You have to smile.

They have to smile. They force their head up, and they're not the crying one. They're wearing a smile. It's rosy-cheeked and cute to look at. That's enough, isn't it?

"I'm fine. I'm adjusting fine! Nothing's wrong," they announce, but it's a little too loud, a little too bright, their voice wavers in a way that they can only see as weak. "Maybe... haha. Maybe you don't want to bother with this today, Dipper," they suggest, fingers gripping their sleeves tightly. "I made Frisk cry. Bet I'll make you cry, too!" Because they're the reason Frisk is sobbing, right? Their fault. Because of the demands they made.

[krmvgivv]

"I'd take that bet." Okay, logically speaking, this is probably not a good move, but the fact is you need emotions to cry and Dipper is running low on those. You also need emotions to feel fear, and though Dipper makes a point of not being afraid of Chara whenever he can help it, it's nice not to have to try and get there.

"Guess this event is really all or nothing, huh?" Like Dipper needed more reason to ignore the whispers that reminded him that feelings were important. His feelings can be overwhelming at normal strength. He doesn't need to find out what they'll be like dialed up to 11. Not when even now it's hard to ignore the date.