A True Partnership
By Ulrich362
(I do not own Undertale, or the Storyshift AU, they belong to Toby Fox and Voltrathelively.)
A young girl in a blue and purple striped shirt slowly walked down a long corridor before a second figure obscured by shadows appeared in front of her.
"I had a feeling you'd get here eventually, you have no idea how long I've been waiting for this." the second figure mentioned. "I've known you were here since the moment you fell through the barrier."
"That voice, Chara?" the girl questioned curiously. "What are you doing here, what about…"
"You know, if I look to the side really hard I can see them. Numbers." Chara continued. "They're rising and falling, popping in and out of existence, and at the top of them all is your name. Shifty."
"What are you talking about, what numbers?" Shifty asked. "That doesn't make any sense."
"Don't try to say otherwise, I can see them right now clear as day." Chara explained. "The king is just two rooms away from here, and soon your fate along with everyone else living here will be decided by what happens in that room. Are you going to stay, go back, or are you going to leave?"
"I already decided what I'm going to do." Shifty responded calmly.
"Well that's your call to make not mine." Chara admitted. "Then again, before that happens there's something I have to do. A duty I need to uphold. When you first arrived the tenth line of numbers, your Execution Points was at zero."
"Execution Points?" Shifty asked nervously before looking down.
"The same was true for your second line, your Level of Violence." Chara added. "Before you came here you'd never killed anyone, but now I have to judge you for every violent act you've committed since your arrival here."
"Wait, but Chara I never…" Shifty started just before a smile appeared on the other figures face.
"That is, I would if I could. The numbers are exactly the same as they were when you got here, you never hurt or killed anyone." Chara noted happily. "Do you have any idea how rare it is for a human to never gain any LOVE?"
"I didn't hurt any of them but…" Shifty started quietly.
"To be honest I was scared to see those numbers start to increase, but they never did." Chara continued proudly. "No matter what you went through here you never fought back and always treated everyone with such kindness. You made so many friends on your journey."
"Chara, there's…" Shifty started before clenching her fists. "There's something I need to tell you before I can see the king."
"Huh, what is it partner?" Chara asked calmly.
"I… When I first came to the Underground I wanted to kill the monsters here." Shifty admitted as guilt washed over her face and she looked down. "On the surface, my life was really awful so I thought maybe if I killed all the monsters people would start treating me better."
"What?" Chara questioned. "You wanted to kill everyone down here?"
"I did, even after getting through the Ruins and past Papyrus I just was waiting to get a weapon so I could…" Shifty mentioned before looking back towards Chara. "Except, when I met you and saw how nice they were even to a human it made me pause. How could I bring myself to hurt people who were so genuinely kind?"
"So that's it, you saw how the Monsters really acted and decided to spare them." Chara summarized.
"No, I would have still gone through with killing them." Shifty explained. "I was going to wipe out people as innocent as them for no reason. I just told myself I needed to find a weapon of some kind and then I'd start killing them."
"Why, why would you want to do something like that?" Chara asked angrily. "They're all so innocent."
"I know, it would have been a stupid thing to do." Shifty admitted. "Thinking back, I can't believe I even thought of doing something like that."
"Neither can I, but I think I get why you'd consider it back then. Humans are awful, and when they're all you've ever known… well you didn't and that's the important…" Chara started while closing her eyes in thought.
"No it isn't." Shifty argued. "At least, it isn't the only important part. I wanted to tell you about this because I need to say thanks."
"You needed to thank me?" Chara inquired. "Why, I didn't force you to spare or kill anyone."
"I know, but if I hadn't seen you and your family I would have kept telling myself they weren't human and didn't matter. It would have been the worst mistake of my life." Shifty explained. "That's why… that's why I need to thank you for everything."
"Then I guess that means we both owe them for helping us when we really needed it." Chara finished.
"Yeah, you're right." Shifty agreed. "So like I said before, thanks for everything partner."
"You're welcome." Chara noted with a smile. "I don't know what'll happen from this point, but just know that we're all behind you partner."
"I know, and I appreciate that Chara." Shifty replied before Chara walked past her.
"Oh yeah, if you do decide to stay here you're always welcome with me and Rei." Chara offered before leaving the corridor, leaving Shifty to take the final few steps to confront the king, and determine the fate of everyone in the Underground.
(This is just a short one-shot that came to me after looking up the Storyshift AU by Voltrathelively. I figured, what if Shifty's life on the surface had been difficult and her reason for entering the Underground was to try and get humanity to praise her for killing the monsters, only for her interactions with those same monsters and Chara to help her realize that not only do they deserve to live, but that killing them would have been a mistake she'd regret for her entire life.)