Well. I wasn't sure if I should post this here or not (I've been posting it exclusively on AO3 until now). I figured though I could use the extra encouragement of having more people review this. The extra criticism, too; go ahead and let me know if you think something's wrong. Especially in the way I portray the subject matter; I truly do not want to misrepresent anything I portray in this fanfic.
And in case you missed the warning in the description, yes, this story will feature rape later on. I'll give you a warning on the chapter it happens, but if it makes you uncomfortable, you may want to consider skipping this story, friend.
The searing light and wisps of smoke lingered on the edge of his vision as he woke up in the flower bed, taking in the fresh feeling of a new reset. It might have been a little nice—especially since his body was no longer turning into ash—had not the reason for the reset been so frustrating.
Before he could fume over it for much longer, the sound of humming reached him. Right—the king was there with his back to him, and he really didn't want to deal with him in this timeline. Or for several more timelines yet.
With a rustle of his golden petals, he was out of the flower garden and deep underground.
So that last timeline had been more-or-less an absolute failure. Not his first failure, of course—that was par the course for the things he did. Experimented with. Toyed with. Trial-and-error was normally part of the fun, seeing what worked and what didn't, what he could get away with and what he couldn't. But normally the trial and error merely involved save reloads—going back a few minutes, hours, days, or even weeks to amend an error.
It was a bit more frustrating when he lost an entire year's worth of work.
He thought he'd been careful with his saves that time, but no—he'd saved just barely too late, after a certain smiley trashbag had figured out what he was trying to do. No matter how many times he reloaded the save, he would always be there to stop him. It got worse every time, to the point where every time he reloaded, he would immediately be next to him, ready to unleash an attack.
As he mused, he weaved around the magma streams of Hotland, having memorized the path several dozen resets ago. He could still feel the heat from the soil around him, but it was nothing compared to the hellish attack that comedian was fond of.
The feeling of anger ghosted over him as he pushed his way through to the cooler soils of Waterfall, now having to avoid springs and streams of water. Normally when a plan failed hard enough to warrant a full reset, he might spend some time collecting his thoughts and trying to get it to work again. But he was so frustrated, so sick of that bundle of bones that kept ruining his plans, he couldn't even concentrate on his old plan (which hadn't even involved that idiot).
True, he could just kill him—catch him off-guard, bury the clothes and dust, and go on with his plan without interruptions. But then there was always the chance of other monsters actually missing him, organizing search parties, potentially finding the buried remains… Ugh, even when he was dead, he was a bother.
His body rippled in a shudder, and not just because he was pushing through frozen ground.
No, that wasn't enough. It was never enough to just kill him, especially if he wanted him to pay for ruining a year's worth of work. He would have to do something different this time—something tailor-made to make the smiley trashbag suffer.
Luckily, it wasn't too difficult to figure out just what—or rather who—he'd have to mess with to do just that.
He angled himself upward, plowing through the upper layers of soil before surfacing through the snow with a pop and a shower of powder.
"Howdy!" he said to the tall skeleton, who had staggered backward in surprise. "I'm Flowey!"
And he gave Papyrus his usual smile, rustling his petals when the skeleton smiled back.
Yes, the who was easy.
It was the what that was going to be the fun part.