You silently twisted the lighter in your pocket while looking at the flower, refusing to offer any hints of your thoughts on your face.
"Kinda late to be training, don'tchu think?" Flowey asked, still wearing a large smile. You felt a shiver travel up your back from the brisk wind.
"Couldn't sleep." You answered plainly. Why were you even here? You shouldn't trust the flower. You didn't trust the flower.
"Another nightmare?" He asked, smug smile growing. You felt anger flare and ignite in you, but forced yourself to breath normally. You came here willingly, you had to remember. You came to him.
"Yep. I want to make sure it doesn't come true." You answered, pulling your hands out of your pockets -empty- and crossing your arms. "I'm choosing to spar with you, but don't mistake this for trust. I reserve the right to walk out of here any time I want." You made your intent clear, though you weren't sure how much good it would do. He had no reason to follow your rules, and he could easily kill you now if he wanted.
"If you say so." He nodded, seeming more than willing to follow your simple demand. He looked up at you mid-nod, smile growing slightly more twisted. "So… tell me. What are you training for? Why do you need me to teach you?"
You suppressed another shiver as you looked into his dark eyes, hearing complete silence other than the wind scrape through the surrounding trees. Was that thunder off in the distance? "I need to be able to defend myself. I can't be afraid anymore." The exchange seemed rather… formal, compared to training with Papyrus and Undyne.
"Shall we begin?" He asked, excitement building in his eyes. You nodded, and immediately felt the earth shift under your feet. You jumped back just in time for a pair of vines to break out of the dirt and hang in the air beside Flowey. "Then I accept your request."
The vines rushed at you. Before you knew what you were doing, you ducked and rolled through the flowers, dodging the thick vines. Flowey laughed, slight layering sneaking into his voice. "Golly, you sure do have good reflexes, don'tcha? Well that's a good start."
You quickly stood up, brushing loose flower petals from your knees. "What the hell, Flowey?" You yelled, resisting the urge to grab the lighter. "How about some warning next time? And what about my Soul?"
He giggled, rising up slightly. "I was just testing you, of course! You can't expect little old me to not know your limits before trying to help you!" He leered. "Your Soul is completely optional in a fight. You can't expect every monster to pull out your Soul in an argument."
Fair enough, but still… The ground shifted below you again, and you ducked and rolled like before-right into another vine. You grunted as you felt yourself picked up slightly, before the vine flipped you over and dropped you hard on your back, petals bursting into the air. Giggling filled the area, though what worried you the most was that you couldn't pinpoint where its origin was.
"You can't fight me like other monsters. I'm not one, after all. If you try to follow a pattern with me, you're just making yourself predictable!" You rolled over to your knees, quickly jumping to your feet when Flowey appeared in front of your face. You were going to respond, but you heard something coming towards you from behind. You turned to face it, and immediately fell face first into a bed of flowers. The back of your head was sore.
"Ugh… Flowey come on, let me learn some before you pull this shit." You groaned, rubbing the back of your head. A tightness appeared around your ankle, yanking your back as you yelped.
"Like I said… I need to know your limits." You felt yourself lifted into the air by your ankle, and you twisted to face the smiling flower. A chill settled inside your chest, the weight of his words finally getting to you.
He let go of you, and you crumbled onto the ground with a grunt. You righted yourself as fast as you could, noticing that the area seemed like it was getting darker. You strained your eyes in the new darkness, glancing up for a moment to see the moon get clouded out.
"Aw, that's not very fair to you, now is it? I suppose I have no choice but to switch up my attacks." He spoke, but you still couldn't identify from where. You braced yourself, looking around for a hint of movement. It was a very bad idea to come here during the night. Small white orbs appeared to the left of you, illuminating Flowey in eerie shadows. Those weren't orbs, you realized. You knew exactly what they were.
"You see these pellets?" Flowey asked, motioning with his leaves. "… I think you know what to do." Absolute terror froze you in place as you stared at the glowing seeds.
You were dying.
Your Soul was being torn apart from the inside out.
You were back in your living room, screaming on the ground, reaching for your side as your life left you.
Your Soul was breaking.
Time snapped back to normal, and you fell to the ground just in time for the seeds to fly over your head. You were back in the park, your Soul still in your body and perfectly fine.
"What? My little old seeds bring back some bad memories?" Flowey asked, smile easily heard through his voice. You couldn't stop shaking. You closed your eyes tight and shook your head, trying to shake yourself free from the images assaulting your mind. Breathe. In. Out. Grass. Trees. Wind. Cold. Crickets. Air. Thunder. You focused on different things that were around you, what you could feel and hear. You were here.
"I… I think I'm good for tonight." You said quietly, bringing yourself to your hands and knees, slowly getting your breathing and shaking under control.
"No. You aren't." A vine snaked around your throat, lifting you up. You opened your mouth to yell, but it only tightened. "I said I was going to train you, and I'm not finished yet. We aren't done here until I know your limits." He threw you down into another bed of flowers, and you gasped for air.
"I thought… we had a deal?!" You press a hand to your throat and look at Flowey. He only smiled.
"No, you had a deal. I said I accepted your request to train you, not that I accepted your terms." He grew. The vine supporting his flower head grew taller, twisting and looking down at you.
"G-get back!" You shouted, stumbling backwards and fumbling with your pockets. They were empty.
"Looking for these?" Flowey raised a small vine holding your phone and lighter. "I don't know what you thought you could accomplish with these, but I won't judge you for trying." The vine pulled back on itself, disappearing behind Flowey. "Now let's try this again…" More of the glowing seeds appeared, spinning an outline of Flowey. It took all of your willpower not to freeze up right then. If you froze up, you would die.
The seeds flew at you, and you jumped back and rolled, just trying to get distance between you and Flowey. More seeds flew at you, and you face planted into the flowers to avoid them. You got up, didn't bother to brush the grass off, and immediately started running to the trees. Maybe if you were fast enough-
"Ah ah ah! That's cheating!" Flowey's voice boomed through the air, accompanied by a roll of thunder, the lightning flash somehow perfectly timed to the stinging in your back. You screamed as you fell forward, tightness appearing around your ankles. You were yanked back, lifted, and tossed into a bed of flowers. Again.
"You aren't leaving here. You are going to stay, and dodge these pellets, again, and again, until you are all out of HP." Flowey said with a terrifying laugh. You got up, apparently too quickly, and you had to hold your ribs to minimize the pain.
More seeds appeared before you were ready, and you jumped again out of their way, landing hard on your stomach, hands stinging from all of the abuse. You stayed there a moment, trying to catch your breath. "What? Are you going to give up now?!" Flowey asked, seemingly taking your breather as a sign of defeat. A vine wrapped around your stomach and forcefully lifted you up. "Do I have to start calling you names?" The vine let go and dropped you onto your legs, vanishing in time for more seeds to appear.
"Do I have to start calling you idiot?!" You somehow found the energy to dodge most of the seeds, though a couple slashed across your arm with a sting. "Do I have to remind you that I can kill you any moment now?" You panicked for a moment, thinking seeds started hitting you from above, only for you to realize it started raining. The cold drops almost stung as they hit you through your clothing and hair.
Lightning struck nearby, lighting up the clearing and giving you a perfect view for just a split second. Vines were everywhere. The beds of flowers all seemed destroyed in your area. Flowey was looking down at you with a broken and wicked smile.
You made a bad decision.
Taking in a shaky breath, you let go of your side and faced Flowey with squared shoulders. His layered laugh warped around you, and you could hear vines shifting everywhere. It was too dark.
"Aren'tchu just precious! Just so full of Determination!" A vine hit you out of the darkness, smacking you across the damp flowers. You were really sore now… but you had no idea how much more you could take without seeing your Soul. It had to be mostly white at this point…
Still. You got up, and faced where you heard Flowey. Light radiated from more of his seeds, and you were too slow to jump out of their way. A bunch of them hit you square on your chest, sending you hard on your back and knocking the air out of your lungs. You lay there for a moment, watching the lightning crack across the clouds and rain come down at you, feeling coldness settle in your bones.
You coughed, and turned to your side. "You done yet?" You asked, voice rough. Flowey seemed shocked at that, at least from what you could see from the slight light from his seeds. He gave you the time to stand up, and immediately fired more seeds at you. You fell back once again, landing against some of his vines.
You were done, you knew it. One more hit and you'd be out. Flowey seemed to know it too, his quietness confusing your dazed mind. The rain continued to fall, and you simply closed your eyes, unable to stop anything that was coming to you.
"Hey… you okay?" A quiet voice asked close to you. You opened your eyes and saw Flowey looking up at you, looking concerned. He no longer wore his twisted smile, or towered above you. He was back to his old self.
If you had any energy left at all, you would have said some sarcastic reply, or tried to hit the flower, or something. But instead, all you did was close your eyes and breathe. You were cold. And hurting. Thunder boomed again, and you felt slight pressure wrap delicately around your chest and waist.
"Sorry… I guess I went a little over the top…" You felt yourself being moved, and the rain no longer was falling on you. You slowly opened your eyes to see leaves draping around you, and saw you were under the willow now. Larger strange leaves you never seen before were also above you, helping keep yourself protected from the little rain that did sneak through the willow branches. A strong scent welcomed you, some of it familiar though you couldn't identify it.
"Here… You can have these back." A vine brushed itself against your chest, dropping your lighter and phone onto you. You slowly grabbed the objects, curling up around them. Softness surrounded you, and you couldn't help your thoughts from getting fuzzy. "Don't worry… I'll watch over you. I'm sorry…" Flowey's voice faded halfway through saying your name.
.
You jerked awake. At first you didn't know where you were, flowers and vines filled your view, strong sunlight filtering through the willow leaves, the air filled with the sound of light wind and birds chirping. You looked where you were sleeping, shocked to find a literal bed of flowers. Most of them you couldn't recognize, but you could name jasmine and lavender. Some of the flowers were clearly unnatural, and had to be from the underground.
Your mind raced trying to remember why you were here. What happened last night? Slowly your memory returned, causing you to freeze as your heart hammered. You looked around quickly, seeing no smile golden flowers nearby, you brought a fist in front of your chest. You had to be sure…
Your chest tightened for just a moment before your Soul popped out, looking its usual red, blue band around it perfectly fine. No seed. No white. You sighed with relief and quickly pushed the Soul back into your chest. Best not keep it out here.
You leaned back into the bed of flowers and looked yourself over. Your clothes were an absolute mess, the grass stains will be impossible to get out, you knew. Various cuts lined your sweatshirt, though shockingly your skin wasn't broken anywhere. Even on your arm where you distinctly remember seeds cutting you, there was just a bruise under the cut fabric.
"Breakfast?" You jumped as Flowey's voice asked, appearing beside you. You scrambled back in the flowers, scared for a moment. The flower looked sad, but forced a smile anyway. "I scared someone and they dropped their nice cream. I don't have much use for food myself…" A vine held out a small wrapped treat towards you. You stared at the flower for a moment before slowly accepting the food, holding your hand out for it. The vine dropped it into your hands. Still cold.
"Listen… I'm really sorry about last night. It just felt so good to fight… I forgot that it was just a sparring." He looked honest in his apology. It wasn't like you were particularly sore either. A few bruises and ruined clothing, but in the end… you actually felt really refreshed.
You didn't respond, you didn't know how to, so instead you just opened the nice cream and bit into it. Strawberry flavor. You glanced at the inside of the wrapper and saw "You are doing great!" written on the inside.
"I understand if you don't want to continue… It did get pretty intense-" Your phone vibrating cut off what Flowey was saying. You opened the screen, seeing [where u at?] from [Angry Fsh]. Strange, you didn't remember putting Undyne in as a contact.
"Sorry, give me a moment." You said quickly, and typed [With other monster. Why?].
[bringing smol human 2 ur place. cool?]
[I'm not there, but sure. Just ask Sans to let you in.] It was nice she asked before bringing them, at least.
"Sorry about that." You said and looked back up, seeing Flowey still looking droopy. He really was upset about yesterday. "Uh… about what you said… yeah, no." You ran a hand through your hair. "You need to know that if I say I'm done, it means I'm done." You bit into the nice cream. How you were still so calm… you would have thought you'd be booking it out of here.
"Look, I'll be honest with you. I don't want to train with you. Never really did. I still… well I don't hate you, but I dislike you." He seemed shocked you were being so blunt. "I do, however, still… want to train. I'm sure I could find other monsters easily enough, but since I'm being truthful here, it's still you that I'm afraid of." Not right now, apparently. You were talking to Flowey as if he was an actual friend. How in the world did he do that… "I need to head home now, but we can continue later. Hopefully not in the dark, next time."
He nodded, understanding. "Right. Well… you know where I am." He looked awkwardly around before ducking into the ground, leaving you and your nice cream in peace.
.
The door shut just a little too loudly behind you as you entered the apartment, immediately gaining the attention of the monsters and human in your living room. Papyrus, Alphys, and Undyne were watching some new anime with Frisk.
"Human?" Papyrus asked concerned, looking you over. You glanced down and noticed that you probably aren't in the best of conditions to be showing up in. "Where have you been? My brother and I have been confused since you were not here this morning."
"Damn, human! You look like you got wrecked! Who's your new training buddy?!" Undyne asked, slightly less concerned about your physical appearance. You ran your fingers through your hair, pulling out a small yellow flower.
"Uh, another monster. You probably wouldn't know them." You said, flicking the flower towards the miniature trashcan by the couch, though it fell short. "I feel a bit dirty from training though, so excuse me." You stepped towards your room. Quiet talking could be heard through your door, causing you to pause for a moment.
"-not like they would want to see me ever again… I messed up, no more resets to fix my problems-" Sans. If he was going to talk about you, he could at least talk to you. You grabbed the handle to your door.
"Oh human! Before you go to your room-" Papyrus started, but was too slow to stop you from opening your door. You paused as you looked on your bed, seeing Sans sitting at the edge and holding Samus. His head jerked at the sound of the door opening, eyes widening when he saw you.
You noticed his cheeks were wet.
"T-this isn't what it looks like!" He stumbled to his feet, looking at Samus for a moment and back at you. You stepped forward, but before you could speak he blinked out of the room.
"Let go, little beast! Come on!" You heard his voice down the hallway and you quickly ran towards it. Spare room. You opened the door and saw Sans struggling to unwrap Samus from his arm bones, and she was simply not having it. He looked up at you, and backed away.
"Sans." You spoke, causing him to freeze. "We need to talk."