Chapter 29: Dark Aspirations
Given that he had dealt with the original, Sans got assigned to speak with the new Catclaw. The others captured in the stadium had been sufficiently awed by Asgore and Frisk; they could be turned around. But apparently Chilldrake was giving the guards a headache with his aggressive defiance. He and others had confirmed that Catclaw was the one causing most of the sudden murders around the capitol. Catlcaw and Chilldrake were also the last two possessed by humans, so these interviews would be little use until the ghosts were properly taken care of.
"The one with Chilldrake is named Heath," Frisk said, checking information on his tablet. "He's taken the form of a ghoul; higher than average lucidity, aggressiveness depends on the individual. Ghouls can be forced out with spells of positive energy, even healing spells. Once disconnected, he may need to be battled until his anger is spent; he'll revert back to an insubstantial heart. I can transfer him to a sleeping doll at that point as long as he doesn't get angry again."
"Is he going to be tough as a ghoul?" Undyne asked, seeming interested in a challenge.
"What could we do rather than fight him?" Asgore asked. "I'd rather not do that myself."
Frisk nodded; if they'd known the two others were among this crowd, he would have recommended Asgore not take part of the rescue effort. "Calling him by name when disconnected and some consoling for the dead may be enough to satisfy him. Although given the fuss he's still making, I'd count on him wanting a fight even given his name back. Ghouls can't be harmed by mundane weaponry, but that shouldn't be an issue among us. Heath in particular seems more vulnerable to fire magic and resistant to cold."
"That might be because of who he possessed," Undyne said. "So what about the other guy?"
She was one who could be as much of a problem as the fury. "The one with Catclaw is named Cora and she's taken the form of a ripper. It's a more unusual type, although not as rare as the fury. Actually, the name refers to a legend among humans of a grisly serial murderer called Jack the Ripper. Rippers are dangerous because they like violent murders with small weapons like knives or claws and tend to be good at going unnoticed. Also, rippers aren't something that even professional ghost hunters would attempt to calm down. They can kill even without a host and battling it is unlikely to be enough to revert it to a basic soul."
"In that case, we'd be better off if we didn't have to battle it at all," Asgore said. Undyne nodded slowly to that; a little surprising, but good for her sake.
"Right," Frisk said, still reviewing the notes he'd downloaded. "It may be best for me to handle her personally since I can summon her out of his body while they're both asleep and bind her straight into a doll. And it looks like I'll need to add extra security measures to her doll to make sure she doesn't wake up before I can pass her off to a priestess who can subdue her better."
Since he needed to be there for both to call the souls into dolls, they decided to have Frisk call Cora out of Catclaw first. Raime got Sans the court records on the individual to review while that was carried out. This wasn't someone that the city judges had thought worth watching closely until he'd been arrested for leading some of the riots. He didn't have close friends and had lived apart from his family since he'd turned sixteen. While there were issues with his work, nothing in his records until the riots was a red flag to them. It was worrisome, but there were many other monsters with similar characteristics. Not all of them could be monitored.
Besides, any monster could snap unexpectedly in their imprisonment, even someone like Papyrus.
That though chilled Sans' bones, though he couldn't explain to himself why aside from some faint ideas that it wasn't like that this time. Catclaw must have been possessed in his initial imprisonment, given that the interview mentioned that he had a blueness to his eyes and aura when he got angry. Odd, blue wasn't usually seen as a symbol of anger. It did explain a bit of her issue with hypocrisy.
When Frisk came out, the black-haired doll he carried was bound with red threads. He moved on with Alhys and Undyne to regain the soul of Heath, so Sans went to interview some of the younger participants of the failed execution. "We wanted to be cool rebels like Chilldrake," an Ice Cap said. "I was kind of thinking that it was getting too extreme, but it seemed like such a bold move for standing out, even more so than fashion. Plus when everybody else said it was a great plan, I didn't want to be some stick in the mud like my parents. I thought Chilldrake was the coolest of the cool, but it's not so cool attacking everybody at once."
This was typical teenage peer pressure, thinking something was fine if others said it was. Most of these runaways from Snowdin would be assigned volunteer work and corrective lessons as a result of this. It was a shame that this was what followed Cinna disappearing from Snowdin, though. It was sure to worry all the families there.
But their ringleaders Chilldrake and Catclaw wouldn't be getting off easy even with the issue of them being possessed. Sans went in once he heard the cat had woken back up. He was kept separate from the rest, still caught in Frisk's shell. With his fur turned back to a normal tan, Catclaw was nudging the shell to see what he could do. "Oh, you, you were the guy who said I was a lame imitation!"
"Hello to you too," Sans said, setting the records on a table.
"How could you say that?!" he asked, jumping to his feet and acting like he'd strike the shell. But he held back.
"Like I said, I dealt with the original myself," he said, putting an edge of a judge's power to his words. It caused the cat to freeze in place. "You look nothing like him and your speech is completely different. So what's your original name?"
He stayed still for a moment, then flicked his tail in embarrassment. "Burgerpants," he said with a small meek expression.
"No, I asked for your original name," Sans said, although it was clearly on the records. "I've heard that story, so I know it's not actually your name."
Somehow, he got even more embarrassed. "Tom Cat," he answered. Then he grimaced and brought out his claws. "Yeah, it's a completely generic name, I get it! So even a dumb degrading name is better than that if I take it in stride. But I could be more, I could be way more than I am! So now I'm Catclaw."
"Catclaw targeted mostly children that he thought were too innocent for being imprisoned underground," he said. He tried to keep an even tone for that, but some of that anger had never faded even though it was centuries ago by this point. "Are you really sure you want to take that name?"
If he'd answered immediately with 'yes', Sans would have marked him down as more worthy of execution. He'd just have to stay his hand until Raime or the third judge could approve of it. This cat hesitated. Since the ripper's soul had been taken from him, his LOVE had come down several levels. "Well, it wouldn't be that great to be associated with that. Guess not, let's go with Tom, boring as it is."
"Sure," Sans said. Because of the possession, he decided to take things differently. "Well then, Tom, what day is it today?"
"It's, uh..." his ears twisted and his paws twitched. "It's, um… I dunno?" When he finally made a guess, it was ten days ago.
"Have you been losing track of time?" That sometimes happened if the monster had snapped from a state of depression, when they couldn't care about normal life.
"Well yeah, there's a lot of stuff I don't remember how I got somewhere," Tom said. "Like I know I was on one of the city rooftops not that long ago, but next thing I knew, I was down at a convenience store by the fringe and nobody was around." He scratched at his ear. "But there were plans, see? There's been these plans in my head and they seem great. Except they're not, they're really cruel! But they'd make me great, somebody that people would fear and respect! It confused me a lot too, especially the times I thought I was a girl for some reason."
"Do you recall what your most recent plan was?" Sans asked.
"Ah..." he frowned, glancing from side to side while he searched his thoughts. "Kinda? There isn't any plans in my mind right now… what was I doing? There was something about some scientist I was supposed to kill for revenge. But, I don't remember why I wanted revenge? I was pretty angry about it; I'm sure I wanted her dead at some point. But I don't remember why, not even sure who she's supposed to be."
He didn't want to lead this exchange too much and accidentally give him an excuse for his actions. At least Tom was talkative; he'd expected since this was the one they suspected of killing the judges, he wouldn't want to talk with them. "Have you been angry a lot lately?"
"Of course!" Tom said, his ears briefly shifting back. But they came forward again to listen to himself. "There's so much going on that's completely wrong and stupid, but everyone's supposed to act meek and happy even if they don't feel meek and happy. You're just supposed to stay in place and not try to be any better than others think you are, or you get made fun of relentlessly and treated like garbage. All of these years, I've wanted to humiliate the people who humiliated me, but they kept saying to shut up and keep doing my job. It's a stupid dead-end job that nobody would want to hire me out of into a better one."
He was sounding more like someone on the brink of turning violent, not someone who had gone well beyond that brink. Tom should probably be kept away from those who incited him. Ignoring the possession issue for now, Sans asked, "Would you tell me what about your job and life led up to you taking the name Catclaw?"
"Well I really have a dumb boring life, it's not much to talk about," he said.
"Go ahead, tell what there is to tell," he said, leaving any magical influence out of his words. A judge's voice would not be encouraging at his LOVE, but there were other ways to encourage.
"And didn't you say that you already heard the story about the name Burgerpants?" he added. So he was lucid right now even if he couldn't recall what occurred in the stadium an hour ago.
"Eh, hearing it straight from you could give more leeway in the actual judgment," Sans said.
"Wait, I'm going to be judged?" he said. But his tail curled close in anxiety rather than flicked in anger.
"If you're truthful with me, it shouldn't be as harsh," he said. Since Tom wasn't getting angry at him, Sans decided to give him some hope. "You've been possessed by a wayward spirit, possibly for ten days given what day you think it is. We need to determine what actions and motivations you had yourself to figure out what's really happened."
"Oh, well that explains the being a girl problem," Tom said, relaxing but still on his guard. "All right, I'll talk. So, I wanted to be an actor, just like Mettaton. He was building up his network those days, so I thought it'd be as simple as showing my stuff to him and asking for work. I even ran away from home to do it, although I was nearly ready to be on my own anyhow. But when I got around to asking, he totally dismissed me! He didn't think I had any potential as a star at all! Even so, he told me that I could work for him and polish myself up so I could be one, so I agreed to that.
"But then he stuck me in as a burger cook and cashier and janitor at a fast food shop in his hotel! There was nothing glamorous about that at all! He even said that you needed no talent to do the job. And Mettaton had all kinds of crazy demands, wanting these cheap easy foods to be sparkled up into star-worthy foods. It was all junk, but it was expensive junk and hardly anybody came around to eat there.
"But the worst was how he treated us working there." By this point, he was angry. It wasn't dangerously so. Sans kept listening, ready to move away if he lashed out. "It was long hours of boredom and tedium, plus our work schedules were never consistent. If we got called in, we were expected to drop everything and show up right away even if it was supposed to be a day off. Most folks quit after a few months, but I was dumb enough to keep on in hopes that he kept good on his word to help me be a star. Mettaton even made this album that was specifically about how horrible I was at my job and it got played at work over and over again. Even my co-workers looked down on me for that and bullied me into the worst jobs, or even working alone there while they skipped out."
"Sounds like fast food hell," Sans said. Some of this needed verification, especially the album. If it was true, then Mettaton would have to be questioned as well. That was sure to be a pain given how much that robot valued his reputation.
"It really was," Tom said, seeming more at ease in talking to him. "Although when I was working there, I'd had all these creepy nightmares of how it could be even worse, believe it or not. It was of this weird customer who had a LOVE that was purely demonic, and there'd be this eerie silence around like we were the only ones alive. I mean, it was just nightmares, but they crept into my thoughts the longer that hell dragged on."
Did he recall Frisk as well? Tom didn't seem like one who could influence time. Although, they did have access to the lab's resources now; it should be possible to scan him for any abnormalities. He wasn't the only one without a chronograph that had faint recollections of lost times.
While Sans made a note of that, Tom went on talking. "But there was something I envied about that kid in the nightmares. They weren't going to let anybody put them down in any way. And while I was working there, I started reading crime and mystery stories. It's all wrong, that's what everybody says, but I wanted that freedom to take what I wanted and not care about what others thought. I started using Catclaw online as a name because he kept escaping from the judges and doing what he wanted. I wasn't really thinking about what he was doing, just that he had the guts to actually do things instead of just saying 'yes sir' and doing what he was ordered to, like I was living."
The original Catclaw thought he was being merciful and insisted that the grieving families should thank him for killing off their children. And he'd kept trying to charm Papyrus into coming somewhere alone with him to kill him, saying that Sans was being tainted by his emerging judge powers. Then again, this Catclaw had been killing off people at random, seemingly for pleasure. Was Tom that cruel or had it been the human soul that Frisk had to tightly bind to its doll?
"There was a lot of resentment against King Asgore that was getting popular at the time, so I got swept up in that," Tom said, still recalling his life. "I felt like I was trapped and worthless, and only my persona of Catclaw kept me out of going mad with despair. As Catclaw, I had an opportunity to really change the kingdom, far more than I could have as just another weak star trailing behind Mettaton. People started to look up to me, so I got more into organizing an uprising against Asgore. We know that just one monster with one human soul can pass through the barrier, since Asriel did so. So we had everything we needed to take a step out of here and gain our freedom.
"Eventually, I decided to quit my dumb job and work full time towards that goal." He seemed proud of himself then, holding his head high. "Mettaton and his groupies harassed me to return to work, but I told them off! It was the most amazing feeling to finally do that, the time when I finally felt important and strong! Of course, I had no income being a revolutionary. But since I was willing to go out there and protest myself, I got some sponsors from more cowardly folks who wanted to make a difference too but couldn't bring themselves to do it. Actually, I tried to talk them into stepping forward themselves, becoming independent masters of their fate such as myself."
"Did you get any who did?" Sans asked. It would be good to find out who was sponsoring the riots and protests, although there weren't laws to deal with the people involved nonviolently.
"A few, mostly younger folks like myself who felt strangled by the lives they slipped into," Tom said. "I started worrying about the shadowy ones, like if they were the ones who were the real power of the kingdom. You know, the reclusive super wealthy who make their own spacious palaces while the rest of us have to cram into small apartments and make ends meet with thankless mindless jobs. I don't know why they'd have a beef with Asgore when his lax leadership allows them to thrive. Maybe they're just bored and are amused at our actions." Tom scowled at that.
This wasn't the first time Sans had heard of such conspiracy theories about a secret enclave controlling the kingdom. It was apparently a common belief among criminals who came from low tier jobs. From those who snapped in high-tier jobs that made them among the wealthy of monsters, there was a matching theory that a shadow organization of lazy wastrels who didn't want to work were sneaking in laws that forced the upper class to support them. But honestly, there was no evidence for either conspiracy.
As he continued talking, Tom could describe his work in organizing the protests and pushing them into riots clearly. He was aware that he'd killed Sohla and Jeremy in order to escape. But after that, his recollections got hazy. "I know I felt really powerful, in control of my life and many more," he said, confused and trying to work out what he'd been doing. "I think others died? But I don't know who, or how many. It's all like a dream, like something I imagined doing but I don't feel like I really did."
Tom would definitely need to be watched closely, with lots of care taken to make sure he still didn't see killing as a sport. He might just go crazy and go on another murder spree even without the hostile spirit controlling him. And if he was allowed to speak freely to his followers, he could stir them back up into a frenzy. Still, Frisk had come back from far worse corruption. It was hard to say that Tom here was irredeemable when he wasn't sure what he'd been doing.
And he would need to be punished for the lives he'd already taken; some responsibility lay with him too. Opening up the folder that had this Catclaw's reports, Sans pulled out some papers on the victims. "You may not be able to think clearly about what's happened, so here, I'll show you." And he started to detail what lives had been taken.
While Tom tried to be tough hearing about the two judges, it wasn't long before he was in tears and wanted to stop. But he had to know about all of them even if it was a torment.
When Flowey finally stopped falling, he was yet again a spirit observer with nothing he could do. And yet again, he was looking at himself. This time, it was in the Hotland lab talking with Dr. Alphys. "Don't even tell them that, just see who answers," he said. "They never care to respond, and rarely even hit the like button. It's not going to change, why keep trying?"
"People reply sometimes," she said, although she was making it a weak argument to herself. "But most of the stuff I post doesn't get a response. But if I ask, someone should respond."
The scene then blinked out; what sense was that supposed to make?
He was then inside Undyne's house, where she was leaning against the wall by the piano. She looked over the large instrument but didn't make a move to play it. Her mind was alternating between stunned blankness where she wasn't sure how she felt and hundreds of questions of grief and not wanting to accept this. Hadn't she been helping? What more could she have done? Could she have prevented her death if she'd just told her how she really felt? What had made her do that to herself? Why couldn't she see the danger there? But, would she really have been any good? She knew how to confront evil and stop them from hurting others, but this?
"Oh geez, what's with the melodrama?" Flowey grumbled. "This has nothing to do with us! Give me Chara!"
In response, he found himself flying back, way back when he and Chara had ventured out into the human world for a brief tragic few hours. "We'll get back home," Asriel mumbled, feeling like he was in a dream where he had to force himself to keep moving forward. "We'll get back home, everything will be okay there."
"No it won't, you idiot!" Chara shouted, so angry that she made them falter in flight. He nearly crashed into the side of the mountain, but forced himself onward.
"We'll get home."
She continued her tirade. "This is not what we agreed on! Why are you of all people betraying me, coward?!"
"They were afraid," Asriel said.
"That's not an excuse," Flowey said, angry at himself.
"They thought I'd killed you. Of course they weren't happy about that."
Chara wasn't happy with that either. "What does it matter? We were finally going to have the power to get revenge on all the horrible humans who hurt me and pretended that I didn't exist. They're all terrible, the world will be better off without us humans. And then monsters would be free and happy, why would you decide not to make the whole world a better place?"
"But I don't think it will be right," he said, his inattentiveness to flying nearly made them crash again. He focused back on that, back up to the top of the mountain where they'd come out. The sky was so dark with tiny sparkles spread all around. "We'll get back home, everything will be okay there."
She screamed at him, but it wasn't long before he lost her and nothingness took over.
"Well that sucked," Flowey said. "At least put me back earlier than that, and let me actually influence my past self. Then we'll destroy the humans and make her dream come true."
Make her dream come true.
Time whirled around Flowey so fast that for a moment, he wasn't sure what was going on. But then the images began to make sense... bits of him playing around before he met Chara, bits of that fateful night…
Then it jerked back to normal speed, settling in on a room that Flowey didn't recognize. It didn't look that nice, with a mattress on the floor covered in a few dull blankets that seemed like they'd be scratchy. Over the pitiful bed, there was a poorly patched hole in the wall, through which unpleasant scents that he couldn't identify came from. There was a bookshelf, lightly populated with a few tattered old books. Some broken toys were pushed into a pile in the corner. And through the shut door, he could hear a man and woman arguing loudly about something.
And finally, Chara was back with him. Both the little doll and the real Chara; they both looked completely the same to him, just one was tiny enough that if he were a flower again, he could be holding it. For now, it was just hovering by him in a transparent form. He imagined that he was holding her, just playing like he was a ghost going through time.
The living Chara sat on the mattress with one of the larger books open on her lap. There was a cute picture on one page of a blue-eyed blond-haired sweet little girl with dimples and blush who was enjoying a flowery dance with a bunch of small slender creatures that looked like barely dressed humans with bug wings. "I want to be adopted by the fairies too," Chara said with a pout. She gripped some of her stringy brown hair. "But I'm not pretty enough, not like her."
"I think you're pretty," Flowey said.
Then scene shifted to a later point in the same room. Chara had a black eye and a cut on her lip, and a grimace like she wasn't going to admit to being at fault. Which she wasn't, the other kid had started the fight. However, her human mother was in the room, a person who smelled like smoke. "Why did you have to get in a fight again, you worthless child?"
"Wasn't my fault," Chara grumbled. They'd been calling her names; they'd been asking for it.
"Well not only are you suspended now, but the school is going to send a social worker to come harass us again," the woman said. "You'd better be a polite girl and tell them what they want to hear to make them leave us alone. If you don't give them any reason to investigate further, they'll give up because they're just government workers. So don't give them a reason."
In contrast to the smokey mother, the social worker was nicely dressed and looked to be brimming with health. They were meeting in a better smelling room somewhere. "How are things at home?" the social worker said.
Chara's lips tightened. Flowey curled his Chara doll closer. "Aw come on, someone like that doesn't deserve your love. Tell her the truth."
"Mom and Dad fight every time he comes home now, which isn't often," Chara said. "He punched a hole in my wall and didn't make a good fix in it, so every time I try to go to sleep, I keep hearing the TV in the living room with the awful shows Mom watches. It's stuff about murder, drug parties, and lots of icky romantic stuff. Though sometimes she has friends over late and they're really noisy."
The scene blipped like something wasn't right with a television or monitor. "Who makes the meals in your house?"
Chara shrugged. "Mom does sometimes, but mostly she takes out and leaves some left-overs for me. If I ask her for something, she tells me to make it myself. I don't do that good at it, but I can make myself soup or raviolis from a can."
Since she'd spoken honestly, the social worker didn't let Chara go back home until someone had gone there to inspect things without warning her parents. The story then unfolded quickly around Flowey. Chara's mother had been arrested while her father had disappeared entirely from Ebott City. With them out of her life, Chara was sent to a place that took care of troubled children and helped them find a better way of living. Chara kept being angry at humanity for a while, but she came to accept the other children and the people watching over them.
That led her to decide not to go to Mt. Ebott. Instead, she worked hard so that she could get accepted to a good school. Her studies led her to become a social worker just like the lady who had rescued her from her neglectful parents. She went on to save other troubled children and help make their lives better as well. At the end of it all, she died of old age with pride in her life, and then Mt Ebottt itself collapsed a century later and killed every monster living there.
The sudden unexpected mass death caused their souls to fuse together instead of immediately disappear. Filled with the despair and pain of all monsters, the spirit lashed out and killed many humans in the city nearby. And once it started absorbing souls, there was no stopping it from consuming every soul in the world, even those of the angels and demons. Thus did the world die.
"What kind of horrible story was that?" Flowey asked. "It sucked. I mean, I guess it worked out for her in that she led a great life and was recognized for it. But she never came and met me! Even if that finally ended the world, I can't accept that."
Thankfully, the time rifts heeded his complaint and whirled time back again. This time, Flowey didn't try to encourage Chara with the social worker. She said that everything was fine and the other kids were just picking on her all the time. The social worker couldn't do much with that aside from getting her assigned to another district. While the lady did tell her office that Chara's situation was worrying, there wasn't enough evidence there to remove her from her mother's care.
Chara's awful mother saw this as a victory, but soon forgot it and got more interested in spending more time with her friends. Unhappy with this, Chara decided to run away. This way, she ended up going to the mountain to find the fairies that she read about. She wanted to be kidnapped by them to be taken to a fairy world where everything was good and candy was considered healthy. She ended up falling past the barrier to where monsters lived instead.
And that was the magical moment they had first met. Chara was injured by her fall and Asriel had no idea of the special kind of hell that his future held. But he thought she didn't seem as horrible as the old legends about humans made them out to be and managed to convince his parents to take her in. The monsters were much nicer to her than humans, more fun to be around. Especially the Dreemurrs. Toriel could bake the most wonderful pies, Asgore introduced her to the joys of tea and gardening, and Asriel was always trying to make her smile or laugh.
One time they had a yearly festival in the capitol. Chara didn't understand what this festival was all about, since it remembered someone who the majority of the participants had never met. But Toriel had made her a beautiful new dress to wear and there would be dancing, games, and music. The fun of it all was something she looked forward to.
But looking in the mirror at herself in the new dress, she felt like it didn't suit her. She liked wearing striped clothes because stripes were fun; the dress was not striped. More than just that was wrong with it. It fit comfortably and yet didn't make her feel comfortable in it. Chara turned and looked, thinking… it was too pretty for her. It was pretty enough for Toriel because she was a wonderful person. And if it had been the blond girl in the fairy book, it'd look perfect on her. But on Chara, it was a waste because she was horrible. She'd bitten a kid hard enough to send him to the hospital, she'd gotten suspended from school, she nearly got her real parents in trouble with the law, and she'd run away from home. Plus she didn't look pretty herself.
"You are not horrible," Flowey said. "You're great."
"I don't deserve any of this stuff, and I'm an ugly girl," Chara said quietly.
"No you're not." But right then, the door knocked and Asriel came in to talk with her. He had their Mom's video camera with him, but had left the lens cap on in a silly way.
She made herself have fun at the festival because that's what everyone expected. Although, it did leave her feeling very tired at the end of the day. She went to bed early and woke up well after Asriel had. The scene shifted again, bringing Chara to sneak down the stairs and head out to the walkway that circled around the capitol. Being higher than nearly everything else, it gave a good view over the city. It wasn't quite like Ebott City, but she thought it was nicer here.
Asgore came down to check on her. "I like walking around here too," he said. "Not only does it lead to the garden, but I can look over this city and think about how best to make my people happy."
"Can you make everybody happy?" Chara asked.
"Not entirely, since everyone has their problems and unhappiness," he admitted. "But I can try to alleviate what problems I can, and not cause more problems for others."
Her human mother had always called her needy for having so many problems, including ones that had to be dealt with daily like having food around for her. She was even causing these nice monsters problems by being a burden who needed things like a different bathroom. "I don't want to cause problems," Chara said. "That dress Mom gave me yesterday must've taken a lot of work."
He smiled. "She does work hard at her sewing, and does wonderfully as a result."
Although sometimes she had some questionable tastes, like that gaudy pick sweater for Asgore. "Did I do something special to get that kind of pretty thing?"
"You being yourself is special enough for that kind of pretty thing," Asgore said warmly.
Except that she didn't like herself and she didn't see that she'd done anything special enough to earn a dress that was too pretty for her to be wearing. Flowey wondered if her human mother's crazy words had been enough to make her think so little of herself. He'd not realized that she felt that way, although he did know that she hated all of humanity for it. What could he have done to make her happy with herself?
Even thinking that, he let the scenes play out. She'd read some of the books their parents had and from them, she got the idea to kill herself and get Asriel to absorb her soul to kill enough humans to destroy the barrier. At no point did she show fear or doubt in her plan; she wanted it to happen more than anything. And to make her happy, Asriel had gone along with it. They trusted each other; they were best friends forever. They could make this happen.
This time, Flowey wasn't going to let his past self get away with chickening out at the last minute. He wished for Chara to override him at the right moment. And, it worked. The humans who had come to attack him didn't even get a chance to injure him. They died in a swarm of fireballs and their souls were absorbed. But, their souls didn't get a chance to take control. Chara made sure to destroy her whole neighborhood first, making her old home the center of the inferno. When day came about, she went to the school she had attended and razed it as well.
By that point, there was nothing to stop her. The school had been mostly empty at the time, so Chara methodically destroyed the roads and rails out of the city before setting it all on fire. Some people fled into the forests, so she made sure those caught on fire as well. Everything seemed to be burning around them and she was pleased. But, it was too dangerous for the monsters to be leaving right then. She waited for the fires to die off, then destroyed the barrier and hurled away a large portion of the mountainside so that the monsters could see that they were free.
They were horrified at the scene of absolute destruction that awaited them when they left. There was nothing but charcoal and ashes out to the horizons. Seeing that, the monsters were so afraid that they retreated to parts of the mountain where they couldn't see the outside, where they hoped they would be safe from their prince and princess.
Chara was enraged at that. How could they not appreciate what she had done for them? Asriel tried to say that they'd done something awful to scare everyone else away like this. But she wouldn't listen. His voice had grown weak from that. Only thinking in anger, Chara brought the mountain down on top of the hiding monsters. That would take care of them. But she didn't feel satisfied with this. Her hatred was not quelled. She sought out others to destroy, becoming so powerful that the world died and she was left alone to finally kill herself as the last remnant of humanity.
"Oh please, she would not have destroyed the mountain and all the monsters still living there," Flowey said. Although, a bit of him doubted this. "I don't know why I was complaining, at least I died with her. Is there any good way that our plan could have panned out? Cause maybe I should have stopped her then. That would keep her alive, I'm sure of it. We could've made her happy with herself."
Before he could go back to the very beginning again, another time rift appeared and swallowed him up.
