Another kid had fallen? Frisk hadn't had any idea what could have changed in the time that it had taken him to convince his mother that he would be safe, but he certainly wasn't expecting this. He had thought this reset was going to be exactly the same as the others, but this... this was absolutely not what he was expecting. And the poor child who had taken his place! Frisk was experienced with the Underground's perils, but this other kid hadn't been prepared for any of it. And now that person was dead, all because Frisk hadn't come quickly enough.

But that wouldn't be the only problem. Asgore might have promised to not wage war against humanity, thank goodness, but Frisk hadn't befriended Undyne so she must still believe that all humans were evil. And how could Frisk forget Flowey? The little plant hadn't greeted him when he had fallen down, and what reason would Flowey have to stick around for another human if he knew that the seven souls he desired were already at the castle?

This is bad, Frisk thought. This is really really bad. Fighting Photoshop Flowey was hard enough, and the flower only had six souls in that state. With seven, who knew how much more powerful he would be? Maybe he wouldn't even be beatable. If that was the case, what was Frisk doing here with Toriel?! He needed to get to Asgore before Flowey took the souls! What he would tell the furry goat monster once he reached him, well, he'd figure that out when he got there. Hopefully he knew enough about Asgore to figure out how to persuade him to be on guard. He needed to start moving right away, though. Flowey had gotten a head start on him, though he didn't know how far ahead he was. All he could do was hope that his opponent would be cocky and think he had more time than he really did.

He briefly considered resetting. But if his last reset had taken him back to before he had fallen down Mt. Ebott, who knew what would happen if he did it again? It might take him back in time by a month or a year or maybe even more. It would be safer to just go find Flowey.

First, though, Frisk needed to get out of the Ruins. Toriel wouldn't let him go by himself (Frisk knew her well enough to be certain of that), and waiting for them to go together tomorrow would be a waste of precious time. He studied Toriel's grief-filled face. Running away from her while she was already so upset would be cruel, but it was for her own good. Grieving for whoever had fallen would have to wait until after Flowey was stopped.

Getting away from Toriel had been easy. Frisk had thought that he would have to fight her or something like he always had to, but she had just sat in her chair and made no move to stop him. It was so depressing, Frisk had half considered staying with her to make sure she was alright. But he had wasted enough time here and he couldn't afford to let Flowey get any further ahead of him.

If one good thing came out of this seventh kid's death, it was that it made all the monsters too excited about freedom to fight Frisk. Without needing to battle someone every few minutes, his travel time was cut down by a good chunk. Add that to the fact that he knew the most efficient paths and the stations of all the guards, and he made it to Asgore in record time.

The king of all monsters looked up from the flowers he was watering. He smiled sadly when his eyes met those of the young teen. "Ah, it seems that you have come at a lucky time," said Asgore. "I have no need to take your soul as well. At last, monsters have all that is needed to break the barrier. We can be free, and not one more drop of blood needs to be shed." He gave a tired sigh. "At last, now we have freedom and peace."

Well at least that's one good thing coming out of this, thought Frisk. With him rushing to get to the king, Frisk hadn't been able to talk to Sans or Papyrus or Undyne or Alphys or any of his other monster friends. He wasn't sure how they were doing, but if Asgore was saying that the monsters were happy, that meant his friends were doing ok. He'd have to introduce himself to them when this business with Flowey was over. He looked forward to meeting up with all of them on the Surface. And this time, he wouldn't reset and leave them again.

First, though, he needed to stop Flowey. "Where are you going, human?" inquired Asgore. Frisk was practically skipping out of the garden and motioned for the king to follow him. When they reached the room with the coffins, Frisk sighed in relief. The souls were still there, glowing softly in their glass prisons. Light blue to the far right, and then orange and purple and blue and green and yellow. But to the left of the yellow soul floated another heart, this one light green. This was the seventh soul the king of the monsters had taken.

"Jenelle was full of empathy for the plight of us monsters," Asgore whispered, sadly watching the heart float up and down inside the jar. "She told me that after all the monsters she had befriended, if the only way to save them from an eternity of darkness was to give up her life, she... she would do it. That child was a true hero, and I am a hateful creature for ending her."

Frisk approached the light green heart as Asgore backed out of the room, too upset to see his victims any longer. This Jenelle had been the human who had taken his place and died to save everyone. She had walked the route that Frisk had so often taken and made friends with the monsters Frisk knew so well. And then she had been reduced to a little heart.

Frisk had always thought of himself as the only one who could save the monsters. But then this girl had fallen down and saved everyone instead. And she hadn't lived to see her friends reach the Surface and start new and happy lives in the sun. Frisk had been resetting out of boredom, but all of a sudden it hit him that there might not have been a happy ending. Saving everybody and then coming home to a mother wasn't what had happened to Jenelle, and it very well might have not happened to him, either. How lucky was he to have a life with friends and family! If Frisk had had any lingering thoughts about resetting again, they were definitely gone now. Why not be grateful for what he ended up with? It was definitely better than what had befallen some.

Flowey popped out of the ground next to the light blue soul. He stared at Frisk in disbelief. "An eighth human soul?!" He grinned malevolently. "If seven makes me a god, who knows what I'll be able to do with eight!" The flower wrapped a vine around the light blue soul's jar and squeezed it until it cracked. Frisk could practically feel his opponent's stats increasing.

If Flowey got more determination than Frisk, he would take the teen's ability to reset. Prepared for a fight, Frisk stomped on one of Flowey's vines. The plant yelped in pain and ducked under the ground, only to pop up next to another soul. Frisk hurled himself on top of Flowey as he was absorbing a second soul. The frantic plant called up a reset button, and Frisk mustered all the determination he had to pull it away from the flower. It was a battle of pure determination with neither fighter willing to let go.

Desperately, Flowey slammed a vine down on the button. His options limited to one, Frisk hit it at the same time as Flowey did. Like it did after every reset, the world went dark.

I guess I can add 'making an oc' to the list things that I have accomplished. Anyway, next week anybody reading this can see what this fanfic says when two guys with nearly equal amounts of determination hit a reset button at the same time.