Cycle 3

Everything was starting to make sense. She could now not only see everything, but the images now started to seem more logical. Hallways, a kitchen, a bookshelf, clothes… More thoughts that would come now made absolute sense but remained confusing for completely different reasons.

She was in the Underground. She was in Toriel's home. She was young again. What was going on?

Despite everything, some bits and pieces were still muddy and unclear. She couldn't remember who she was and she didn't know why she thought "young again", and she didn't know who Toriel was and why she found it hard to make heads or tails out of everything.

It was warm. Whatever she was connected to was painfully warm, to the point she wanted to scratch it away, even if it meant scratching her arm open to get rid of that disgusting sensation. It felt like uncomfortably warm water running through every vein, everywhere, all over her body.

Her?

She saw dust. She felt a cold chill fight the uncomfortably warm feeling. She was really cold now. She was incredibly scared again but she didn't understand why.

She saw a giant pair of doors. They led further in. Further into the Underground. She couldn't tell how she knew all that. Without realizing it, they opened and she walked inside. She saw a golden flower. She had seen it before; she knew it somehow. She made words without realizing it once again.

"Who… are you?"

A clear look of shock crossed the flower's face. Face? Yes, he had a face. Yes, it was male and it was alive. How did she know all these things?

"Tch. What a bother."

That voice came from her.

Wait…had she said that?

She felt burning hands pressing hard, squeezing. She couldn't move. Could never move. She felt it hard to breathe. She felt like crying. She was terrified. Her thoughts were mixing. She felt words slipping away. She was going back.

She wanted to cry.

She wanted to cry? Why?

It was warm.

Why was he here? Why hadn't he stayed in some safe corner of the Underground and just waited? Hell, why hadn't he just stayed a few steps behind watching like he had done the first time Frisk fell down the mountain? He had to be crazy. What the hell did he hope to accomplish? He didn't care. He wasn't indebted to anyone.

Yet he still stayed in that spot outside Toriel's basement. The only way towards Snowdin. He wasn't going to stop her. His plan didn't go as far as engaging in battle, no matter how poorly made it was. Besides, he wasn't particularly suicidal this timeline around and judging by how empty the Ruins were, her LV had to be fairly high… Not to mention she probably snatched up the toy knife which was sharper and far more dangerous than a stick. No, he wasn't going to stop her.

He was trying to get some answers.

He heard footsteps approaching. They were casual and soft, as if the kid was merely going for a walk and wasn't trying to kill everyone she met, himself included. Kill or be killed indeed. She finally stopped before him. She was wearing clothes that would do painfully little to protect against Snowdin's climate. That green and yellow striped shirt only helped bring home that this was—

"Who… are you?"

He couldn't stop the wave of shock that slammed into him. It wasn't just the words, no… It was the voice. The soft and considerate voice standing on borderline annoying from how naïve it sounded… Flowey looked at her eyes.

They were chocolate brown. She looked so confused, but there was no doubt in his mind. Had she returned somehow? But Frisk should be able to remember everything after a Load or Reset… Was this a sick joke? But her eyes weren't crimson like—

"Tch. What a bother."

The human narrowed her eyes for a fraction of a second before closing them, scratching the back of her head with one hand while the other rested comfortably inside her pants' pocket. When her eyes opened once more, they were red again. That confident posture and teasingly knowing grin were unmistakable.

Chara was back.

"That's far more pleasant. Greetings, Flowey. How nice of you to stop by." Chara smiled amiably. For a second, it felt like he had returned to those halcyon days from so long ago, when they played together and had fun every day. The almost-feelings were gone in a flash. It was hard to reminisce about his sister when she was carelessly twirling a knife around a few feet away.

"Howdy, Chara." This was not how he ever expected to meet her again: possessing the previous hero of monsterkind years after the book was closed and everything was over and done with. Oh, he had expected the carnage with her return. Heck, it was what he yearned for Frisk to do while she ran around trying to hug everything, when he projected Chara's image onto her. It was kill or be killed. That had been the world's main rule for all those years.

But Asriel had felt differenty. Frisk had proved him wrong by offering mercy again and again. No matter how many times she was hurt, how many times she was knocked down, how many times she was killed… No matter how the adults would scorn her on the surface, how she'd be pushed around by the humans she should've called her peers, how no one could really ever hope to understand what she was going through…

Flowey would never again feel the relief Asriel felt when Frisk hugged him and forgave him for everything, but he could remember how it felt. Flowey wasn't indebted to anyone, especially now when no one had yet made it out of the Underground this time around. But even so…

Maybe the least he could do, in the memory of someone who wasn't him anymore, was talk to Chara. Maybe the least he could do was get some answers. Maybe the least he could do was ask how the dead could come back to life.

She had to hurry, it was following her.

She couldn't tell what it was, but every single bone—no, every single cell in her being was telling her it was a bad thing.

She didn't know where she was, how she ended up there or where everyone was, but all that could cross her mind was that she needed to run, to get away. It was whispering her name and she could feel someone's hot breath on the back of her neck. She could feel ice-cold hands snaking around her windpipe. Oh gods, she just wanted to get away-!

"WAKE UP!"

Lukewarm water splashed onto Frisk's face and entered through her nose. Frisk bolted up from her bed, bending over and coughing out the water that entered her throat and lungs. Her pillow was slowly absorbing the water that dropped from the bottle atop the table behind the head of her bed. Once all the water was out of her system, Frisk looked at Flowey in his pot… which was lying on his side with some of the dirt spilling onto the table. He looked more irritated than she was supposed to be.

"Wanna tell me why you almost drowned me in my sleep?" Frisk rubbed the water out of her face with the sleeves of her pajama shirt. It was soaked and going in the washing machine anyways…

"Wanna tell me why you wouldn't shut up and punched my pot over in my sleep?" Flowey spit back at her. The bottle was basically empty by now, so Frisk grabbed it and threw it in the trashcan. Darn it, now her bed was too wet to sleep in unless she wanted a cold when she woke up. Wait… what did Flowey say?

"I knocked you over..? I never move in my sleep, how's—how's that even possible?"

Flowey gave an incredibly irritated groan. "Well I didn't knock myself over so if you still have enough brain cells to form words, hurry up and put me back up!"

'Geez, he's even more testy than normal…' Frisk crawled over to him and put his pot right side up, scooping some of the spilled dirt and placing it back on the pot. Since she couldn't find any spare napkins or papers to clean her hands, she just cleaned them with her shirt. It was going in the washing machine anyways… "Any reason you're extra cranky today? You're usually a better morning person than I am." She wasn't being sarcastic, either. Flowey would simply wake up in an instant, without hassle. Frisk usually had Toriel pulling the covers off and opening the window binds as Frisk tried to fuse with her bed for a few extra hours of sleep. She'd always wake in a horribly cranky mood on school days.

"You'd be pretty irritable too if someone pushed you over, in your sleep, and there was nothing you could do about it! Maybe if you dropped dead I'd get some decent sleep around here!" Finally standing straight, Flowey turned completely away from Frisk and tried to fall asleep again. The human girl could feel the waves of negativity rolling off him in spades. Sure, Flowey had always stayed a bit… 'salty' even on the surface (Frisk believed it had something to do with his pride taking a blow when she finally convinced him to move in with her. Frisk was nothing if not determined and after two years of constant visits, he finally caved in), but she thought he had been getting better. He wasn't smiling all the time or anything similar by a LONG shot, but in the least he had been showing some improvement after living in the surface for three years. This sudden reversal into how hostile he had been in the Underground honestly unsettled her more than she wanted to consciously admit.

It's not that he had been incredibly kinder. It was constantly the opposite, but Frisk was grateful for that. When Frisk had first met Flowey, he had worn his practiced and fake smile… The very same one that fooled her into trusting him and almost spelled her doom until Toriel came to her rescue. The same one he used to trick Papyrus into getting everyone together before he stole everyone's souls. No, the fact he bared his fangs and didn't mince his words was what Frisk considered the greatest sign of trust. He didn't hide his feelings, didn't sugar coat his words, didn't lie to his advantage… What Frisk saw was the real deal, and the young human felt immensely privileged. Even Toriel and Asgore received special treatment from Flowey, since he had a tendency to watch his language around them (she believed the memories of being Asriel and getting scolded probably had something to do with it). So when his death threats and hateful comments slowly sizzled out over the years, she had been ecstatic. But now, she could tell... could feel that something else much bigger was bother her somewhat-friend yet he refused to say straight out what it was. He never tried to hide whatever was irking him before... In fact he took every oportunity to tell her how "old her mercy-shtick was getting" or "how weird it was that she could laugh about everything". Sure, if she honestly knocked him over (which still made no sense to her) then he had every right to not be happy, but not to his current extent. Even by Flowey's usual "grumpy" demeanor, something seemed to be on his mind that made him adapt a sharper tongue.

Frisk glanced at the clock on the wall next to the door in her bedroom. It was three in the morning. Yeah, there was no way she was gonna start her day at that ungodly hour. She walked over to her dresser and grabbed a new shirt to sleep in.

As Frisk changed into dry clothes and scooped up her bedsheets, she couldn't find it in herself to push him for more answers nor blame him for his attitude. She had an unsettling feeling that told her something was wrong. The last wisps of her nightmare still tickled the back of her memory, and the deep feeling of dread was still nestled deep in the pit of her stomach. As she grabbed the door handle to exit her room, she heard the rattling noise of metal hitting itself... and glanced down to see her hands were shaking without her knowing. Surely that stagnant atmosphere she felt was what had Flowey on edge… The very air felt heavy and harder to breathe in for both of them.

Huh. So this was snow. It was softer than she thought it'd be.

Oddly enough, despite the long amount of time she had lived there, she had never seen snow before. It wasn't like Ebott was located in the arctics, either. When Toriel had explained snow was frozen water falling from the heavens, she had been honestly excited. She expected chunks of ice crashing down on the head of whichever unfortunate sap was unlucky enough to be passing by. She hadn't imagined this soft, plushy and boring fluff.

A snowflake fell into her open palm and melted instantly, becoming a slowly increasing puddle atop her palm, leaving no trace of the beautiful shape it once had. A light coat of snow was starting to cover her head and shoulders while her toes were completely submerged, sinking into the sheet laying on the ground. She didn't notice any of it.

Shaking her hand dry and sliding both inside her pockets, more for a lack of having anything to do with them than actual cold, she stepped forward once the door to the ruins slid close with an echoing thud. The loud noise reverberated loudly before her, getting lost among the trees, causing layers of snow to break free from branches and fall to the ground. So these were Snowdin Woods… She wondered how many monsters were between where she was and the actual town of Snowdin. Hopefully enough to keep her entertained. Toriel had put up more fight than she had expected, but it had still been far too simple to cut her down, especially when she broke down into tears and hugged her, leaving her back wide open... Then Asriel—or rather, Flowey (she still found that name ridiculously stupid, almost Asgore-levels of stupid as far as names went) had shown up and, well…

Her bloodlust was still dangerously high.

Quickly bored with the plain white scenery, she stepped forward on her way deeper in. Her surroundings were eerily quiet, and she found solace in it. There was something almost magical about being the only source of sound in an empty road. It made her feel like the only living thing left in existence. Even through the itchy feelings in her hands from wanting to pulverize something, she still felt calm. Serenely so.

She passed over a thick branch, and heard it snap loudly behind her. Another thing she liked about the silence: it helped her find victims all the quicker. Of course, it helped when whoever was behind her wasn't trying to be subtle, either. She could hear the rustling of snow that was out of sync with her own steps, the humming of magic in the air, the shifting of tree bark from someone ducking behind trees… She doubted they were really trying to remain hidden. Probably someone trying to scare her.

She welcomed the challenge.

A bridge cut short her path forward with a shabbily made gate of sorts built on top of it. It looked incredibly pathetic, but she figured it properly foreshadowed how stupid monsters could be. She was about to cross between the obviously huge gaps in the gate when she felt her foot freeze mid step.

Hello.

This was a surprise.

She couldn't move her foot at all. It might as well have been someone else's due to how little control she had over it. She could feel the magic slowly enveloping the rest of her body. It felt like a blanket made of static electricity. Fuzzy, humming, but not dangerous. Not yet. Was this made by whoever had been trying to scare her?

Nice. She hadn't been scared at all, but her curiosity had been piqued. Just how well could her mysterious puppeteer control this magic of theirs? Hopefully a lot, or this would be over much too quickly. She could hear slow yet heavy steps approach her frozen body.

"H. U. M. A. N."

Chara didn't even try to hide her grin.

"k-kid? what's—! frisk!"

The first thing he registered was the sharp pain that rang through his skull.

The second thing was that he was staring at the ceiling of his bedroom.

The last thing he registered was that he fell off his bed. At least the distance from the bed to the floor wasn't that great. Even if he had skin he knew he wouldn't have bruised.

Sans made no move to rise from his place half on the floor and half not. He kept staring straight at the ceiling while his legs rested beneath the covers atop the bed. Everything was the same. The lamp with the dead flashlight inside was in its place; the treadmill was a few feet away from his head and was turned off to save power and so it wouldn't disturb his sleep; his trash tornado was as messy as ever in its own little corner.

Nothing was out of place.

Everything felt so wrong.

'what... the hell just happened?' Sans couldn't help but ask himself. He was in his room: that much was certain… But why? Why was he in his old room in the Underground instead of his shared room with Papyrus in the surface? Did someone seriously prank him by bringing him down there? Even so, that was a bit too far for a simple joke and Sans wasn't that heavy a sleeper. What had even happened the day before? For some reason, he couldn't remember.

This whole situation just screamed "bad time".

Sans finally pulled his legs to the ground and stood up. His old, beaten up slippers were at the foot of the bed. The uneasy feeling multiplied exponentially… Those old slippers were supposed to be ripped from being chewed up by a dog who ran away with his ankle bone some years ago. It was supposed to be in a dump or a landfill somewhere far away.

The skeleton was arriving at a conclusion he did not like, at all.

He ignored his shoes all together and exited his room a little more distressed than he would've liked to look. Whatever was happening was making his non-existent stomach do flips, and he feared using his magic to take a shortcut outside in his condition would've caused him an unnecessary headache (not that this messed up version of a joke wasn't already causing his skull to pound). He bolted downstairs and across the living room – the tv and Balboa the rock weren't on the surface either, he noticed—and stopped at the kitchen door, following the racket and loud humming he heard. There stood his brother, in his old cooking apron with his old cooking utensils, making unbearably burnt spaghetti noodles when he could obviously do better because of all those cooking lessons he took hosted by Mettaton a long time ago. Maybe it was all still a prank. Undyne and Frisk could come up with some scary stuff when they put their minds to it. Alphys was still (supposed to be) re-building the ventilation shafts from their last joke.

The alternative was much scarier to think of.

Papyrus finally noticed Sans standing still at the door to the kitchen. Sans placed his hands inside his pockets and tried not to look as nervous as he felt. "sup, paps?"

"AH! YOU ARE FINALLY AWAKE, BROTHER!" Papyrus did not hesitate to leave the stove at max, something he just didn't do anymore, as he walked over to Sans. "YOU FINALLY FINISHED YOUR EIGHT HOUR NAP! IT'S ALREADY NOON!" Papyrus didn't call them naps anymore since Toriel and Alphys explained the concept of sleep to him. "TODAY IS A GOOD DAY! I CAN FEEL IT!"

Sans watched in barely concealed horror as his brother walked past the pinned up calendar on the wall. If the date hadn't confirmed his fears, Papyrus' words would've. "TODAY MIGHT BE THE DAY! THE DAY I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, FINALLY CAPTURE A HUMAN FOR KING ASGORE!"

The calendar was dated 201X.

He was in the Underground, six years in the past.

A/N: Of course, it wouldn't be a fanfic made by me if there wasn't a huge gap between chapters 2 and 3. What even...

Now that classes started, I can spend more time writing as I procrastinate. That's not how it's supposed to go? I know. I'm sorry.

See you soon.