A/N: This is an alternate universe of my Anomaly Cycle fanfiction and will be a two-shot, (maybe a three-shot (do those even exist? (I don't think they do (parentheses-ception)))) which should explain its length. It diverges from the original timeline during Beyond Forgiveness, so I strongly recommend you read that (and In At the Death, its sequel, as well, or what I've got so far) before this. If you don't want to read them, however, then the general premise is that Frisk takes Sans's soul on a genocide run after the player hacks the files and resets to do a pacifist run. Things go down mostly the same up to the friend-appearing bit at the end, when Flowey appears and offers Chara to take over Frisk's body while he takes her soul. Chara refuses and forces Frisk and Flowey sideways into a pocket dimension, which is where this begins.
The idea for this came from someone who asked me, on the Anomaly Cycle Tumblr, "How would Beyond Forgiveness end if Frisk and Chara weren't able to save Asriel?"
Finally, please remember that this will contain spoilers for both Beyond Forgiveness and In At the Death.
With all this in mind, let's begin.
Flowey was in a sort of trance. He watched blindly as Frisk summoned the six human souls and, together with theirs and the shattered remnants of Chara's soul, shattered the barrier. He listened without really paying attention as he spat out snarky lines and glared cynically.
And then he finally focused, as Chara said, "Frisk, when you got Dr. Alphys to help you, you learned that giving Asriel your soul would only be a temporary solution, and that after a period of a few years, depending on your determination, he would begin to crumble and fall apart."
Frisk nodded. "I know. I was hoping a more permanent solution could be found before then."
Something shifted inside of him. She was willing to give all that up for me? WHY?
Conflicted emotions clashed and tumbled over each other as he trembled on his stem. When he finally regained his focus, he heard himself saying, "Go ahead and cry your little head off about your poor tragic life and then go running to your new family for help! I'll wait!"
Chara's eyes flashed red. "You know what? I'm tired of this, Asriel! I'm tired of having to talk to you as a spiteful, soulless flower!"
And why do you- was all Flowey could think before he was blinded by purple light. He heard dark whispers everywhere around him, spouting vaguely satanic-sounding gibberish. When the light faded, he was... himself.
I'm back.
"How?" was the only thing he could say as he stared down at his body.
"I'm more powerful than you know." Chara's gaze darkened. "And drawing off of Frisk's determination, changing a form is simple enough."
Asriel sighed. "This isn't going to work, you know. The instant we exit this..." He waved a hand around. "I'll turn back into a flower. You can't save me." He wanted nothing more than to rage, scream futilely at why, why did he have to be like this, why... but he crushed those thought down and kept a placid expression on his face.
"I beg to differ." A true smile split Chara's face, and Asriel wondered what was going on in that head. "Frisk, you remember how Asriel and I died, correct?"
"Well, yeah, but-"
"And did you never wonder why my soul didn't persist after death when Asriel died?" Chara pressed.
"Actually, I never really thought about it..." Frisk frowned. "I guess I just thought that your soul was like mine: determination enough to reset, but the cost of that was that it would shatter upon death."
"No. No no no." Chara laughed. "No human to fall into the Underground has ever had the same amount of determination as you, Frisk. The reason my soul was destroyed was because I used all of the power Asriel and I had to duplicate that single slice of time. And by doing so, I preserved Asriel's soul. His original soul."
Asriel's eyes opened wide. "You mean-" He could feel his heart thudding within his chest, determination slowly filling him. I can come back! And then I... I...!
Chara nodded. "Unfortunately, retrieving it will come at a cost. Frisk, I'll need to leach off your determination. There isn't anywhere else that I can get so much of it. I-"
"Wait." Asriel interrupted. He could feel something welling up inside him, some emotion he couldn't identify. "Frisk's determination won't be enough, will it?"
Chara's eyes widened. "How did you know-"
"You're going to have to draw the determination from your own soul. Won't you?" Asriel sighed. "And it'll kill you again."
Sighing, Chara abruptly dropped to the ground, legs falling into a crossed position. "You were always more intuitive than I gave you credit for, Asriel. You are correct. This will kill me. Again. But..." Eyes brimming with tears, Chara looked up, somehow managing a watery smile. "The... the ends justify the means, right?"
Somehow that statement felt vaguely anachronistic, but Asriel wasn't about to question that when there were much more important issues at hand. "I won't let you kill yourself just to bring me back, Chara. I won't let you."
Chara's gaze was suddenly bright and clear. Raising a hand, the shattered fragments of their soul floated down and began circling the three of them. Frisk's soul suddenly flickered in her chest.
"How are you going to stop me?" Chara asked, smiling sweetly. A red wisp flowed from Frisk's soul into the pieces around the three of them, and Frisk gasped and clutched at her chest.
Determination welled in Asriel. Right now, the only thought in his mind was to stop this, to save Chara, and nothing was going to stop him.
Even if it cost him his life.
The light grew brighter and brighter. A hole appeared, and within it the first flickers of a white soul.
My soul. That empty space in Asriel thudded, opening, inviting his soul back into him, and in a sudden selfish moment Asriel wanted to let his soul come back, act like he had tried to save Chara and failed, let Frisk comfort him, he could go back to his family, he could go back to his mom and dad, and everything would be just as it had been before-
"NO!" Asriel screamed out, banishing those thoughts to the back of his mind. Reaching out with what little magic he had left, he shoved back against his soul and reached farther for Chara's.
It was in there somewhere, wasn't it?
Chara's eyes were wide and panicked. "Asriel, what the hell are you doing?"
"I'm saving you." Asriel's green eyes narrowed as he pulled and pulled, and then the fragments of Chara's soul from so long ago came speeding back to fix what was left of hers now-
I don't have much time. Asriel turned to Frisk. "Frisk..." he said in a strained voice. "It... would've been nice... to get to know you better. I..."
Frisk took a step towards him, and then another, and then another and another and she had started running, but it was too late, too late, and Chara's fragmented soul was piecing back together as the light grew brighter. Asriel laughed in satisfaction as he started to dissolve into dust. Finally, he thought, I can get some peace.
Frisk blinked. She could barely see anything, mainly because some green cloth was blocking the light.
"Frisk, are you okay?"
Her vision came into focus, and she saw Chara's concerned face peering at her.
"Yeah, I'm fine, I think." She tried to sit up, but that made her head swim, so she laid back down again. "Where are we, anyway?"
"The Ruins, at Mom's house." Chara moved away towards the door and shuffled awkwardly. "When I woke up, we were lying on the flowers where you first fell down, and you were unconscious, so I carried you over to here. Nobody's here, so I took you into the living room and put you on Mom's chair. You've been out for an hour now."
"Asriel...?" Frisk started.
Wordlessly Chara gestured towards a yellow flower sitting in a pot on the edge of the mantelpiece.
He's okay, then! Frisk was filled with hope. We can try again, we can try to get him a new soul again, we can...
Her elated thoughts trailed off as she examined the flower more closely. No... No...
"It's just an ordinary flower." Chara's voice was raw.
No! Frisk closed her eyes. I didn't even get to... I never... I...
Slowly she breathed in and out. Her legs gave out from under her, and she collapsed onto the floor sobbing.
The sun was setting in the distance.
"Guess this is it, then." Chara sighed, staring into the distance.
"Yeah." Frisk agreed. "Not the best ending, but... not like I can go back and change it any more."
"Neither can I." Chara noted. "I tried loading when the humans were sending up the troops and all that... nothing. We can't change this, however much we may want to."
They sat there silently, watching the sun descend beneath the horizon, and quietly mourned all that had been lost.
"...news has arrived that the government has contained an entire species within this camp for over a year." the news reporter announced.
John A. Pence glared at the television. "Well, this is going to tank the economy." he said sourly.
And then he noticed it.
A flash of a familiar face as the camera passed over the crowd of monsters at the gates.
Snatching up the remote, he rewound fifteen seconds and played it again frame-by-frame.
There.
He paused the picture. Chara was standing there, next to that other human, caught right as she was turning around to face the goat monster behind her.
The remote fell from Pence's fist and clattered to the floor. "How?" he whispered. "I saw it, I saw you dead, I saw your body! I thought... I... I..."
Something snapped deep within Pence's brain, and then there was nothing.
"Well, that's a shame." sighed the Anomaly, tapping at the keyboard in defeat. "He would have made a good puppet."
"You never told me about your life on the surface, you know." Frisk noted, picking up a stick and trailing it along the ground behind her.
"I know," Chara sighed. Her expression darkened as she thrust her hands into the pockets of her green hoodie. "Trust me, I didn't... Heh." She forced a laugh. "Well, my little brother was alright, for a human. But what're the odds that he's still alive?"
As they walked around a tree, Chara caught her foot on a root. "Dammit!" she shouted as she fell onto her face.
A pale hand entered her vision, and Chara looked upward to see a boy about her age in a red hoodie, hood up and face shadowed. His blue eyes looked familiar somehow, but she couldn't place where from. "Need a hand?" he asked.
Normally Chara would have refused, but something in her brain had clearly come loose from the fall, because she reached up to grasp his hand, and he pulled her up to her feet. "You alright?" he asked.
Chara brushed grass off her pants. "Physically, I suppose the answer is yes."
Something in the boy's expression darkened, and he let out a low, soft chuckle.
'"Who's this?" Frisk asked, and Chara turned to face her sister. "This is... uh..." She realized that she hadn't got the boy's name, and snarled internally as she turned around. Great, that's two humiliations in one day! Perfect! I'm just short of getting to three in a row!
"Caleb," the boy said, raising his hand slightly. "Caleb Conrad." His brow furrowed as he inspected the two girls. "You know... this might sound crazy, but I think I recognize you two."
Chara wasn't sure whether Caleb was joking and settled for turning to look at Frisk, mouthing Is he serious? at Frisk. Frisk shrugged.
"Well, we've been on television a lot since... hmm, how about ever since the monsters' presence became known to the general public." snapped Chara sarcastically, not in the mood for jokes. "Maybe that's where you saw us, hmm?"
Caleb's eyes widened, and he took a step back. "Alright, first off, no need to be aggressive about it. Second, I don't watch TV, so no."
Is he serious?
Something settled over Frisk's face, an emotion Chara couldn't quite identify. "I'm sorry about Chara. She's not having a good day."
Caleb smiled slightly, but then he looked over at Chara's face and his grin dropped. "I know the feeling."
The three teenagers stood in the shadow of the tree, none knowing what to say or how to feel.
Finally Frisk turned to Chara. "Chara, do you think we should bring him with us to Grillby's?"
What the hell? Since when were we going to Grillby's in the first place? Chara glared at Frisk out of the corner of her eye and didn't say anything.
"I guess that's a yes, then." Frisk turned to Caleb. "You want to come with?"
Caleb let out a clearly fake sigh. "Well, if you insist, I'll pry myself away from my depressed existential musings..."
Who's insisting? Chara sighed inwardly. Well, she and Frisk hadn't made any new friends yet. Even if this kid was a human, they might as well take what they would get.