Light.

"It sounds like it came from over here... Huh, when did those flowers get there?"

Harsh, golden light that stung her eyes. Through the light... a voice?

Chara waited for her head to stop throbbing. Bit by bit, as her adrenaline faded away, her memories began to return. What had just happened? She didn't quite know herself. Ah - that was right. She had injected herself with the determination, hadn't she? Mettaton had hit her. She had died.

A small grin pushed at the sides of her mouth.

Not before she had gained the power to reset, though.

She had reset once, back to her original save point. She had reset a second time, back to the beginning of the game.

Now...

Now she lay on the familiar bed of golden flowers, staring up at the light shining down above her. If she could only reach the source of that light from where she lay, wipe out every last insignificant person, creature and thing that existed up there.

She supposed it didn't matter. Soon enough, she'd destroy everything.

So... why had she stopped resetting? That had been her plan, hadn't it? To gain the power to reset and to reset until there was nothing left to reset? She could sense it lingering in the air now, the tension, the dread, the feeling that something was off. It made Chara tremble with excitement. She knew that Frisk could feel it too. She could feel the fear resonating from deep inside her SOUL.

"You know whats coming, don't you, Frisk?" Chara thought. "Mettaton failed to stop me. You all failed to stop me. The combined efforts of you all - Alphys, Flowey, you - you all failed. Its over."

Silence.

"I know you can feel it too. How wrong the air the feels. The chills down our spine. That's Armageddon, Frisk. Don't you just love it? ... You're being awfully silent."

Chara knew what Frisk was trying to do. She was hiding, burying herself deep inside of their SOUL - out of sadness, or anger, or an attempt to calm herself. Probably a mixture of them all. "I've got to applaud you again - that was a clever move back there. Isolating all of your concentration into my hand to make me drop the syringe. Same with Alphys and her little telephone code. Shouldn't blame yourselves for it not succeeding - you were never going to stop me from the start. Even Mettaton showing up - all that was just a minor inconvenience. I mean, when he killed me, I had to reset! Now we don't get to see what damage that reset caused! We can see what two resets in a row has done, though."

Frisk remained silent, but Chara felt her fear and anger spike. Her small grin grew wider.

"U-um, are you okay? You're smiling kind of oddly..."

Chara's grin vanished. She felt her hands begin to tremble.

That voice.

Him.

How was he here?

He couldn't be here!

"Oh! You've fallen down, haven't you...?"

Chara's eyes widened.

"Are you o-"

"Don't fucking ask that." Chara spat. She finally sat up among the flowers and lowered her gaze. Her eyes locked with the one in front of her, his confused and somewhat hurt and her own brimming with rage and uncertainty. This wasn't meant to happen. He was the last person she wanted to see.

"I-I was just..." His long ears flattened in sadness. "Here, let me help you up-" he took a step and held out a paw.

Chara shoved it away, leaping to her feet and flinching back. "Get away from me!" She could feel herself on the verge of hyperventilating. She shut her eyes, hoping that when she opened them he'd be gone. She didn't want him here. She wanted the flower.

Why the fuck was Asriel here in that weed's place?

N-no, it was okay. All she had to do was reset again, right? This had to have been caused by the splitting timelines. Flowey had reverted back to Asriel, an Asriel who didn't know her. Asriel was greeting her in the flowerbed instead of Flowey. Once she reset, Asriel would be gone. This illusion, this ghost, this bad memory would be gone. Filled with rage and a burning desire to just be rid of this world and the rotten memories it had ignited within her, she took a deep breath, looking forward to the destruction and peace it would bring.

She 'reset'.

She blinked.

She was still here.

Asriel was still in front of her.

The reset hadn't worked.

Why hadn't it worked?

Why was Asriel still here?

She had injected the DETERMINATION, hadn't she?

She was the one with the most DETERMINATION in the world, wasn't she?

Why?

Why the fuck wasn't it working!?

Chara threw back her head and started to laugh. Asriel took a few steps back, frightened by the manic display in front of him. This laughter wasn't like her normal laughter. It was devoid of malice or ill-intent. It was the laugh that a person on death row might give out in the moments before their death. It was a laugh of bitterness, of pure panic and terror, of catharsis and impending doom. The laughter of someone who was completely trapped.

It was terrifying yet utterly pitiful.

Asriel froze, watching her from a few meters away. He watched her with wide, dewy eyes, ready to turn and sprint away at even the most sudden of moves. "U-um..." He stammered as Chara's laughter began to die down. "Y-you're a human, right?"

The last of Chara's laughter evaporated into thin air and her eyes flew open with rage. Her words were like venom. "Don't you dare compare me to those pathetic, apathetic worms."

Asriel shrunk back. "T-then... what are you, exactly? Are you a monster? ... But why are you all the way up here?"

Chara paused. Asriel really had no memory of her, did he? Then, why was that? All of the monsters had memories of all of the timelines. That included Flowey. Yet, Asriel... He truly was a paradox. It was as though a bubble of time had surrounded Flowey, gone back many years and completely ignored the concept of multiple universes, or the splitting of the multiverse itself. It couldn't be stable though, could it? This, Asriel - it had to be something temporary. A glitch. As it was, she felt nothing but annoyance for this echo of her brother - after all, it wasn't like he was real. No, the real Asriel was a flower. A soulless pest that had done things as bad as her. The idea flashed in her mind for a second that in this world, concepts like 'real' or 'fake' couldn't truly exist - a thought she disregarded immediately.

Besides, even if this Asriel had no memory of doing so, Asriel had betrayed her. He'd betrayed the plans they had made. The plan had been for her to kill herself. The plan had been for Asriel to absorb her soul and for them to then go through the barrier together. The plan had been for them to get more human SOULs. To break the barrier. To free everyone. For them to kill the evil humans.

Monsters were so cowardly.

They were cowardly and selfish and evil. They were morally up themselves, thinking that they were 'kind' and more 'compassionate' than the humans.

What a load of shit.

"I'm not a monster." Chara stated.

Asriel frowned. "Then... what are you? If you're not a human and you're not a monster, you're-"

"Call me whatever you want. I don't know quite what I am, either. Call me a demon. Call me an angel." A small smile spread across Chara's face. A mask to hide the seething hatred.

"U-uh..." Asriel's eyes darted wildly. "D-don't you just have a name I could call you by, or something?"

Chara screamed internally. God, she wished Asriel would leave her alone. She wished he would disappear. She wished he would die. She'd forgotten how persistent he could be. Her eyes narrowed and the ice in her eyes must have stabbed Asriel's heart, because he flinched back. "Not for you, I don't."

"O-okay..." Asriel forced an irritatingly sweet smile. "I'll just call you Stripey. Fitting nickname, don't you think? It matches your shirt."

Chara glared at Asriel. "You're talking like you're going to know me long enough to call me that lame name."

"W-what exactly is that supposed to mean?"

"It means get the hell away from me before I rip you open and tear your guts out, you traitor!" Chara spat. She knew this Asriel had no idea of what she was talking about but still, It felt good to say. Killing Flowey had been one thing but Flowey wasn't Asriel. He was Flowey. Him having Asriel's memories didn't mean a thing.

"T-traitor?" Asriel squeaked. "D-do I know you?"

"No." Chara grumbled. "I know you, though."

Asriel looked like he was on the brink of tears. "U-um... I don't see how that's possible. If I don't know you though... t-then, that means I have no memory of whatever it is I might have done to betray you, right? S-so... doesn't that mean it didn't happen?"

"Just because its not remembered doesn't mean it didn't happen!" Chara howled, her throat sore from the loudness of her voice. "Only a selfish, entitled coward would think that way!"

Asriel flattened his ears and stared down at the ground. "Y-you're right. I'm sorry. ... For whatever it is I did to you, that is. Can you at least tell me what it is I did? So I can make proper amends?"

Chara paused, a lump in her throat. "It would only confuse you further," she murmured. Even if she had wanted to tell him, she had no idea of how to.

Chara wondered what she would have done if this was a normal reset. If Frisk had reset and it had been Asriel there and not Flowey. She thought she might have gone along with what he said, pretended to be oblivious to who he was, just to see how things played out. To see his reactions and to entertain herself. She knew Frisk would, too. This was anything but an ordinary reset.

Remembering that she could no longer reset, Chara felt nauseous.

Still, perhaps she could settle with this. If she could no longer reset, even though she could no longer destroy the multiverse, perhaps she could still kill everyone here and be content knowing that Frisk couldn't bring it back? That seemed like a good idea to her.

Wait, Chara.

Chara's eyes widened. Frisk was saying something? "You haven't said something this whole time. What could you possibly want from me now?" Chara thought in response.

You're not thinking this through.

Chara frowned. What could Frisk possibly mean? It seemed like a fool proof plan to her.

Think. The person with the most DETERMINATION gets the resetting power, right? You can't reset anymore.

"What does that have to do with any-" Chara paused. Realization began to sink in. Dread did, too. "You mean... if I can't reset..."

That's right. Who can?

Chara's mind went into a frenzy, thinking things through. Even if she destroyed the world, would whoever had the power still reset? Given how things were, they must have known what was going to happen if they did. Still, what if they didn't? What if they did and they still reset? What if they destroyed the world? Frisk and her - they would cease to exist along with the world. Only the anomaly would exist. Frisk and her - they were no longer the anomaly. Their deaths wouldn't affect anything, as long as whoever could reset still had the power to reset.

If Chara didn't want to die, the only option was to find whoever the anomaly was and to kill them, to make them stay dead. The only option was to make them stay dead without dying herself.

The problem was, this wasn't like a battle with Sans. It wasn't about who would give up first. Whoever the anomaly was had maybe one, two tops resets left before the world and with it, Frisk and her ceased to exist. When they killed the anomaly, they had to be absolutely certain that it was going to stay dead.

Chara went pale.

That meant talking to them, didn't it?

That meant her talking to them, didn't it?

Chara would have been lying if she said that she wasn't kind of relieved.

Finally, an excuse to not speak to Asriel.

She was getting tired, anyway.

When Frisk tried to clench her fists and she felt the fingers on her hands curl, she felt herself disconnect. Was she conscious? Could she move? She realized that she had forgotten the need to breath in her time trapped within herself and took a deep breath.

She'd never been so happy to inhale in her life.

Was that it, then? Had Chara finally given her back control for good, or was this just some prank? Was she really in control? Perhaps it was only her breathing she had control over? That sort of move seemed incredibly risky to Frisk, who knew without a doubt that the movements she was making right now were her own. She relished every movement she made, glad that her consciousness had a body to accompany it once again.

"God, that was awful," Frisk said. Her eyes widened when she realized that she hadn't meant to say that out loud and she took a moment to separate her thoughts from her speech. It had been a while since the two weren't interchangeable.

"What was awful? Are you still talking about whatever I did to betray you?" Asriel asked cautiously. Frisk smiled warmly at him - a gesture that only encouraged the confusion on Asriel's face. Frisk knew the only reason Asriel was still there was morbid curiosity - a feeling she knew all too well. "I think I should explain all of this to you later. There's a lot of backstory there."

"L-later?"

"I think you should come with me." Frisk said. Asriel was the first one she'd met in this world who she knew she could trust. After all, chances were that beyond this room, the world was in chaos. She was frightened, more than anything. Still, would Asriel even survive if he left this room? Perhaps it was only here that he could exist.

How long are you going to keep toying with monsters' lives to satisfy your curiosity, Frisk? Chara sneered from inside.

Frisk made a face when she heard the voice. "I guess you being quiet and giving me back control was too much to ask, huh?" Frisk shot back. "Let me tell you - now that I've got it back, I'm not going to give it up easily."

That's fine by me, Chara said. Frisk's eyes widened. That was the last thing she'd been expecting Chara to say. I feel like you're the only one that can save my life in this situation, so I'm okay to wait for a little while if it means I don't die.

Frisk sighed. She'd gathered Chara's plan from her thoughts. She agreed that getting whoever the anomaly was to die and stay dead was really the only way to go. She really didn't want to hurt anyone else - but the multiverse wasn't going to fix itself until all of the anomalies were gone. This new anomaly, then Chara, then her and finally, Flowey. She supposed Flowey would gain the power to reset again once she was dead and then, just like what was true with her and Chara, the only way to undo the damage caused by the resets was to kill them or likewise.

"There's something different about you. You... you're not Stripey, are you?" Frisk refocused her attention on Asriel when she heard his voice. "You look the same but... no, you're definitely different. Who are you?" Asriel asked.

Frisk was glad to see that he seemed a little less frightened of her now that she didn't have a creepy smile pasted across her face. She gladly answered his question. "My name is Frisk."

"Howdy, Frisk! My name is-

"Asriel Dreemurr." Frisk nodded. "I know."

Asriel's face fell. "How do you both know who I am...? Was that other you telling the truth? Did I really do something bad...?"

Frisk paused. She'd heard the backstory and watched the VHS tapes enough times to piece together what the history between Chara and Asriel was. "Honestly, I don't think so. You just couldn't bring yourself to hurt anyone, or to let someone you loved hurt anyone. So, even though you'd promised her you would, when the time came to actually carry through with that promise, you sacrificed yourself rather than-

"Sacrificed myself!?" Asriel yelped. "I'm right here, aren't I? I don't get this! I don't get any of this!"

"That's..." Frisk hung her head. "That's complicated. I promise I'll explain it to you if you come with me, though."

Asriel puffed out his chest. Look at that. A kid trying to look tough, Frisk thought to herself - and then chortled when she realized the unintentional pun she had made. "Come with you?" Asriel said indignantly. "No way! You should come with me. You're the one who fell down here, right? You have no way of getting back up to the surface, do you? You need food and first aid and... and... Well, my mum and dad can take care of that!"

A pang of sadness went through Frisk as she remembered Toriel and how the last reset had gone.

Would Toriel remember what she had done, she wondered?

"Ok, ok." Frisk chuckled. "I'll follow your lead, sound good?"

"Yes!" Asriel humphed, pouting and crossing his arms.

Much to Frisk's unending relief, Asriel didn't vanish the second they set foot into the main part of the ruins.

Still, whatever was to come, Frisk was not looking forward to it.