It was a beautiful day outside. The birds were singing, the flowers were blooming…on days like these, King Asgore liked to sit beneath the little hole in the mountain, breathing deeply and imagining that he was on the surface, plucking flowers for his wife while his two precious children played nearby. When he got lost in those daydreams he could sometimes hear their lovely laughs, their sweet giggles. He could hear Asriel grunt as Chara pinned him down yet again and he could hear Chara brag that she was the strongest ever before helping her brother to his feet.

But the dream would end one way or another. He would open his eyes and discover with an ache in his soul that he was alone.

He glanced woefully over at his lonely throne, the throne that should have had another one beside it…the throne that he should have been sitting in with a child on each knee, hugging them both while his wife looked on with a smile.

At least he had his beautiful gold-colored flowers to keep him company and make the place seem more…alive and bright. Chara had loved to romp about in the garden, hunting bugs and picking flowers. Sometimes she would tie the flowers into a crown for him to wear. Then she would make one for herself and one for Asriel and they would all have matching flower-crowns. Once she had even made a flower lasso and played cowboy (with poor Asriel playing the part of her noble steed.) He smiled at the memory even as sadness pinched his soul.

Taking care of the gentle plants was almost his way of paying homage to his not-always-so-gentle daughter. He watered a few of the late-bloomers. He hadn't gone inside all day; he had been so focused on the garden. Hadn't listened to his messaging machine or attended to his kingly duties. He sighed. He had a lot of work to do, but he had been gripped by such a bout of melancholy that he just couldn't get to it right now. He needed some peace, some time to think.

His thoughts were interrupted by a sound. Someone had come in. Probably Undyne, he thought, to nag him about answering his phone. She always worried about him.

He turned and was rather surprised to see a small child, a little monster with red-tinted eyes. A small flower was perched on their shoulder, a flower that smiled.

"Howdy!" Asgore said as graciously as he could. The child stepped into the sunlight, squinting slightly as the bright beams struck their corneas, and the flower, being a plant, smiled and tilted its roots up towards the solar light.

"Is there something I can…?"

Asgore paused as, in the light, he realized something: the child looked quite a bit like Chara. Same hair length and color, tendency towards striped shirts, same age range, same height.

He swallowed nervously. "Ah…I am sorry, child…but what kind of monster are you? Sorry, I cannot tell…"

The child laughed and…that laugh…so familiar. It was the same sort of laugh Chara had used to give after 'defeating' Asgore in a 'fight'. When he had lain down, pretending to be beaten, and she had laughed in triumphant glee.

The child spoke.

"Aww…Daddy….don't tell me you've already forgotten me!"

Chara's voice.

Asgore was silent for a moment before he got down on his knees, examining the child carefully. There was an aura of…something wrong surrounding the child, something he couldn't pin down. It wasn't the aura of a human, nor was it really the aura of a monster. He couldn't even define it.

But at that moment, he didn't care. She could have been in the body of a Moldsmal for all he cared. What mattered was that it was her voice. What mattered was the fact that he had, after so many years, finally been called 'Daddy' again.

"C-Chara…" he stuttered, smiling a wobbling smile, "My…my little princess…is that really you?"

Chara smiled and nodded. "King Dad…aren't you happy to see me?"

Asgore broke down, yanking Chara into an embrace and weeping with joy.

He didn't see the devilish grins lighting up the faces of Chara and her floral friend.

"Okay…so…we can't use the Machine, Chara's still hunting us down, if she kills you and Asgore she might destroy the world, and Frisk is still critically injured and couldn't do much even if he was at full health. Wonderful. What are we supposed to do?"

Sans, who had been in the process of feeding Frisk another cinnamon-bunny (the child was now up to a miniscule 3 HP), set the child's head down. Flowey, still sitting next to Frisk's head, watched as Sans tapped the side of his skull thrice, a nervous habit he usually only employed when under intellectual stress (Flowey recalled that in past timelines, when he and Sans had been friends, Sans had done that quite often when they had played chess. Smart as Sans could be, board games were not his forte).

"i have an idea," said Sans. "not sure if it'll work or not, but it's our only hope."

"Spit it out!" ordered Flowey.

"reset,' said Sans simply, and Flowey tilted his head to the side.

"RESET?" he repeated. "What about it?"

"so, when a reset happens, everything goes back to where it was initially, where it's supposed to be. if we can reset, maybe that would send you and frisk back to where you're supposed to be…back to your own time."

"Yeah, or we could all just end up at the beginning."

"it's a shot in the dark, but it's our best bet. better we start all over than let chara win."

"Fine, but we have a problem: we can't RESET. Only Chara can, and she made it pretty clear back in Muffet's lair that she's not gonna be doing that anytime soon."

"then it's back to square one."

"Square one?"

"my plan from before: kill chara over and over 'till she gets frustrated and quits. she's impatient, i can tell. determined, sure, but impatient."

Oh, Flowey knew that too well. As much as Asriel has adored Chara, even he had realized that she had the patience of a starving squirrel. If a movie or book had failed to grip her for more than three minutes she would declare it to be boring, grab Asriel's hand and amble away with her brother in tow while Asgore would chuckle and Toriel would lovingly chastise her for…

"uh…are you okay?"

Flowey realized he had been smiling nostalgically, drifting off into a pleasant daydream. He shook his head and his eyes became steely once more.

"That's actually not a bad idea," said Flowey. "But…uh…she has a me with her."

"a…you?"

"Well, this place's version of me."

"oh…two against one, eh?"

"You're tough, but even you might have a problem. Even you can get tired of you're getting hit from both sides."

"i'm tired right now…" sighed Sans honestly, and indeed his white pupils lacked their usual lackadaisical glow. Instead they were dull with fatigue.

Flowey thought for a moment, trying to come up with something that might give the skeleton an advantage. He could go along, which would even the odds somewhat, but even if he and Asgore both joined the fray they might still have difficulty against the LV-19 child and the relatively tough Flowey-2 (Flowey, after all, was no hapless plant and he assumed his doppelganger had as much strength as him. Possibly more if he had managed to accumulate some LOVE of his own).

Plus he didn't want to leave Frisk. Not because Chara would become invincible if she killed the child (Chara didn't know it, but Flowey had learned while on the surface that humans, unlike monsters, gave very little EXP to their murderers, so Frisk probably would prove disappointing if Chara's goal was to get over LV 20). No, Flowey just didn't want the boy to be all alone. There would be a risk if Chara, being, like him, neither human nor monster, managed to absorb the boy's soul…

His soul…

Soul.

"Souls!" yelped the sentient flower. Sans narrowed his eyes down at the plant.

"huh?"

"I know where the human souls are!" he cried. "I found out on our run! Chara won't know and neither will the other me…so if you can warp in and absorb the souls…hehehe…well, if you were trouble for me before, you'd be the ultimate Boss with the souls!"

Sans' eye briefly flared blue and he asked, "Where are they?"

"Right near the Barrier, under the ground in a bunch'a canisters. Go! Fast! Absorb them and…and…"

Kill Chara.

He couldn't say that.

"Just…make her stop…"

"you've got it, bud. and…"

He looked down at the slumbering Frisk, whose wounds were healing steadily, and his gaze softened slightly.

"look after 'im…okay? just in case. i…i'll do my best to make her reset all this and bring you back…and then i'll never hurt 'im again…or let anyone else hurt 'im."

"Just like you promised…" sighed Flowey with the smallest of smiles. Sans nodded, looking down at Flowey. Even though Sans was always smiling, Flowey could sense that if the skeleton had the ability to do anything else with his maw, he would still be smiling at the flower.

"smell ya' later, flowey," he said with a wink. Flowey moaned.

"Was that a joke? Because I'm a flower? You're really running outta material."

"hey, i'm under pressure! i'll be more punny later!"

And before Flowey could scold him for that, he disappeared.

A few minutes went by, a few silent moments, before Frisk moaned and rolled over. His eyes fluttered open forlornly.

"Ngh…F-Flowey…?"

Flowey leaned over the child, relieved to see him awake, alive, free of amnesia, and smiling.

"Hey, stupid," Flowey said with a small, broken giggle. "You look even more horrible than ya' usually do…"

Frisk giggled, but then coughed violently, as if the mere act of laughter was detrimental to his health. Flowey cringed and, using his vines, patted the child on the back.

"Easy," he said. "After all the HP I lost on your behalf, you'd better not just go and die on me. I know you're a sick little masochist, but…"

"Masochist? Uhm…what's that?"

"It's what you are. I'll give ya' a definition later. How are you feeling?"

"Grateful."

"Grateful? To what, your dumb luck?"

"To you…Flowey…you saved me…"

The child reached out and placed a tender little hand on top of Flowey's head. The flower froze up for a few seconds before offering the child the gentlest smile he had probably ever offered him.

"Hehehe…like I said earlier, Frisk…nobody tries to murder you but me."

Hey guys, what rhymes with a blundred-nifty? If you guessed a hundred fifty…well, yeah, that was kinda obvious.

At any rate A HUNDRED AND FREAKING FIFTY REVIEWS! CHEER! YELL! WAKE THE NEIGHBORS! WHOOOO!

Okay, I'm calm now.

Seriously, guys, I know I've been saying this every chapter, but I'm just bemused by how much love this fic is getting and how many reviews, faves and follows it's accrued. I'm honored, and I'd like to thank…

That 'Inactive' Afiction: As of now, I believe it's on the first page with 'M's. Whee! Also, great choices! Asgore does indeed have a great boss theme.

SernaJ: Polish. I study WWII History, so I can recognize it : ). Thanks! Also, that's an unnaturally long way to wish someone a happy b-day. Try writing that on a normal sized-cake!

Secret (Guest): Indeed, they are all great! Also, thanks for the b-day Bonetrousle!

AllergyRelief: Huzzah, a fellow lover of 'Finale'!

Cybermage99

Guest #1

InternalNightmare

Kayla Is Purple: Thanks! No wattpad, unfortunately. Not enough time to maintain another site!

D3aCt1vAt3D: But you're so pretty…staaaare…

DarkFoxKit: Chara's one of the most fascinating characters to me. I'm definitely gonna be exploring more about her and her motivations in later chapters.

Guest #2

Banananana123: Most of your questions are gonna be answered in later chapters, but for now:

"What changed that made flowey not get to lv 20? Normally you get it after BRUTALLY killing Sans"

I think you might have misunderstood: Flowey did get to LV 20, he just never got OVER it. To have the world-erasing powers, in my headcanon, you need to get over LV 20, but that's darn near impossible for most genocidal maniacs (otherwise everyone would do it).

Remember, at the end of Chara's run she kills both Asgore and Flowey. But when Flowey killed Asgore, he never found the souls and he didn't have anyone else to kill that could have boosted him above LV 20 (in my headcanon, Asgore, despite being strong, isn't worth a ton of EXP while Flowey is). Chara did, which is why this is such an issue. Plus it could be presumed that after killing Asgore and Flowey she could either steal their souls and escape the Underground using her stolen human soul, thus going up and killing all humanity, or have hunted down Alphys and the monsters who fled from her.

Sorry if that was unclear from the last chapter!

Stevenuniversefanficislife: Wow. Thank you so much. I'm so happy you're enjoying this that much, and…well, I'm not happy I made you procrastinate, but I am happy you loved my story enough to give it priority over other things! I'm really honored that you would consider this fic to be one of the best in the archive! Thanks so much, I really appreciated your review!

Guest #3: Okay okay! Yeesh, what is your obsession with strangling? I'm getting enough threats from Lvl-ZeR0, I don't need more!

Oh, speaking of which…

Lvl-ZeR0: I…I'll have violence in the next chapter! I promise! Lot's of violence and angst! I…I would never betray you…I can write…I can…

(Simpering Asriel voice) Please don't kill me…

Oh, and also, see everyone? Lvl-ZeR0 took my advice! Burnt Pan every time! The knife is worthless except in the battle against Asgore in the pacifist and neutral runs! Spread the gospel of no-knife to the farthest corners of the fandom!

Ice Bear

Spy of Influence: *Thanking my new follower fills me with more DETERMINATION!

J2DOY: Thanks!

Peace: Yuuup…

Wolfnymph1

LightShadow27: Yeah, that was my mistake. It just felt like a church when I first entered it (and I'm Jewish, so that's saying something!)

ShmokeyDaBear: Can I just say that your profile name made me smile like an idiot? :)

theduffman999: Thanks!

Talkingbirdguy: I hope the victory was satisfying considering the fact that it caused me to waste precious writing time! For shame! Nah, just kidding! Happy belated birthday, btw! How's government-mandated adulthood feel?

Spyrkle10

Thanks to everyone who read, reviewed, faved, and followed!

Next chapter…

*Megalovania begins to play…