I've never been so angry in my life! Dumb humans... why do they have to be so terrible? You know what? I'm done with them! I'm gonna run away and never come back!

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Chapter 2

"Undertale?" What's that supposed to mean?" The yellow flower smiled.

It said, "Well, it's the game we play while we battle each other to the death."

"I'm confused," I said, shaking my head. Why would anyone want to battle each other? Maybe the people down in these ruins were all bullies to each other and used Undertale to be cool or something? I don't know, though. Maybe they're just bloodthirsty.

"Do you want to learn how to play Undertale?" asked the flower. I shrugged as an "I guess so." "Okay! Here we go!"

Suddenly and painfully, something ripped my soul out of me. I went to fall on my knees, but saw that I couldn't. "Alright! (It's been forever since I could play Undertale with someone.) Okay, now that your soul is out, we can play! Oh, but don't worry, your soul will go back to your body once you've finished playing Undertale!" The flower closed it's eyes, and a small white heart came out of it and went into a 2D box. I went into a small 2D box also, looking back at my lifeless body and it's sad, gray eyes. The more I looked at my body, the more I thought, Geez, I look so ugly!

"Now, command your body to stretch out its hands!" The flower's body- well, flower- stretched out its leaves in front of them.

I tried telling my body, "stretch out your hands."

Nothing happened.

"Make your hands go in front of you, myself!"

Once again, nothing happened.

The flower's soul sat in its 2D box, laughing at me. "When I said command your body to stretch out it's hands, I meant do it as if you're still in your body."

"Oh." I was a little embarrassed that I tried to command my body, but I listened to the flower. I couldn't feel my body, but when I closed my soul eyes, I pretended I was still myself, and I stretched out my arms.

"Great job! Not bad for a newbie!" I opened my soul eyes and looked back at my body. It had its arms stretched out. "Now, for the next step. Since we already started playing, I need to tell you about the different butttons below your box that determine what you do when you're playing. It's not hard, trust me!" The flowers flower-body was still smiling, and it was swaying back and forth slightly. In front of the vines and a foot under the 2D box the flowers soul was in, four different buttons appeared.

"The first button is 'fight.' It means you fight your opponent. Pretty easy, right? Except that you have to time your attack well enough to actually hit your opponent. Here, let me show you!"

One of the leaves on the flower pushed the button saying "fight," then a 2D screen appeared that was long and had different colors along it, and the whole thing looked like an eye. If you were to fold the screen in half, both sides would be the same.

The middle of the screen was a small black line, where the flower's leaf hit perfectly. Small little white dots shot at me, and a 2D picture of the flower appeared above the box with my soul in it. The flower was smiling widely as the small white dots hit my soul. It really hurt! I gasped, and so did my body. Below the box with my soul in it was my health bar, and it reached 1.

"No, silly! You were supposed to try to dodge the bullets, not just sit there! If you want to live, you need to learn that. Anyways, next button!" The flower on the screen had a text box with it, saying all the words like someone from "Animal Crossing." I couldn't actually hear the flower talking.

"The next button is 'Act.' This button lets you do different things depending on who you're fighting. Watch what I do, then you do it to me, alright?"

"Alright," I said.

The flower pressed "Act." The only thing that appeared on the screen was the name "Chara." The flower pressed it, and it gave him four options to choose from, other than "go back." The other options were "check," "talk," "flirt," and "threaten." The flower chose "check."

"•CHARA 5 ATK 5 DEF •A newbie to Undertale"

"Wow, you're really weak. Now try me!"

"Okay." Not at all like I'm offended or anything, but okay.

I controlled my body and made it press "Act." I pressed the name "Flowey" then had only three options to choose from. "Check," "Talk," and "Smile." I chose "Talk."

"So... whatcha want to talk about?" I asked.

"Um... I... don't know? Let's just talk about the next button."

"Wonderful conversation choice, Flowey." The 2D picture of him rolled its eyes.

"Okay, 'Chara.' The next button is 'Item.' Since you don't have any items, because you're a newbie, we won't be using that one.

"In 'Items' you get to choose a food to use to heal yourself when your LOVE is low. You can call it soul health, also." Flowey wasn't smiling anymore as the 2D version of him instead looked at his text box as he spoke. "After the battle, I'll give you an item to heal yourself, so don't worry about dying just yet." That worried me. I actually don't want to die at all, so I'm gonna worry about not dying a lot.

The conversation ended, and the four buttons ("Fight," "Act," "Item," and lastly, the new one, "Mercy,") appeared again.

"This next one is 'Mercy.' You can either 'Spare' your opponent or 'Flee' from them. Sparing them gives you money, whereas fleeing does nothing useful. You should only use it if your opponent doesn't let you spare them. Now that we've got everything covered, I'll spare you!" Flowey's lifeless body hit "Mercy," then pressed "Spare." And invitation was sent to me.

"'Spare' Flowey?" I made my hand press a red "O" meaning "yes." The blue "X" meant "no."

"Great job, partner!" Flowey said as both our souls returned to our bodies. I gasped, glad to be back in my body instead of being inside of a 2D box as a 2D heart.

"Hey, Flowey?" I asked. "Did you get to teach Tom how to play Undertale?"

The yellow flower looked down sadly. "Unfortunately, no. He didn't even stop to look at me. He just trampled over me and left through that big door on the other side of the room."

"Is that the exit?" I asked hopefully. Flowey nodded. "So I can leave and go look for Tom?" The flower nodded again, not smiling.

"So, are you going to leave now?" He asked. I hesitated, then walked right up to Flowey and went on my hands and knees so that I was almost eye level with him. He was a bigger than all the other yellow flowers, but still wasn't more than two feet tall. He was more like... one and one-fourths feet tall.

"Do you want to come with me?" Flowey's smile grew as big as his face.

"Yes!" He said happily. "But how can I come with you? I'm just a flower." I haven't thought about that. I began thinking.

"How big are your roots?" I asked.

"Huh? Why do you need to know that?"

I grabbed Flowey by the stem and pulled him out of the ground. He didn't even scream. Probably just because I did it super fast and he couldn't process what was happening.

I put Flowey on my shoulder and let him sit there. His roots wrapped around my shoulder, going through Asriels sweater and my shirt. "Wow, this is pretty nice. Good idea, Chara." My name isn't Chara, but I don't really remember my real name... so I guess it's fine if I'm called Chara for now.

"Okay, ready to go?" I asked, looking at my right shoulder at Flowey.

"Absol-" He couldn't finish, because someone came into the large black room from the door across from Flowey and I.

"Oh, hello child." A large monster (that looked like a female version of Asriel but with small horns) wearing a purple robe-dress with some weird symbol on it walked forward and stopped once she was only a few feet away from me. "Only a month ago another human fell down here."

Another human? Does she mean Tom?

"Come, child. Let me bring you home." She took my hand carefully and lead me through the door she came out of. (Yes, I'm going with some random monster lady who never saw me before, and didn't even give me a choice to go with her.) It led into a large room with light purple walls, two staircases leading to the same door on the other side of the room, and beautiful red leaves below the staircases. There was also a little yellow sparkle right above the leaves.

"Do you trust this lady? She looks veeeeery suspicious," Flowey whispered into my ear. I nodded to him as the female monster led me up the staircase to the right. "Was that a 'Yes, I trust this monster' or a 'She is super suspicious'?" I didn't answer him.

We all went through the door at the top of the stairs and went into another room with purple walls.

"Now, my child, watch closely as I do this puzzle." The monster walked over four buttons and pulled a switch. (The puzzle looked like this, except it was the turned vertically—-} • : • :)

She pressed the buttons that weren't on the small road, and as we walked into the next room, I noticed that there was a sign saying, "Only the fearless may proceed. Brave ones, foolish ones. Both not walk the middle road."

"Well, that's interesting," Flowey said, leaning across my shoulders to see the sign.

"Now, this is another puzzle. You must press the switches I have labeled for you, alright?" I nodded. "Good, then let us begin." I walked on the light purple road and pressed switches that had yellow arrows pointing at them. There were only two switches, and when I tried to pull the third switch, which was not on the road, it did nothing.

"Splendid! You are very good at this, little one." I smiled, and we continued to the next room. The next room had only a dummy inside. (A stuffed one, not a person.)

"Why is there a dummy in here?" I asked.

The monster said, "It is for practicing playing the game Undertale."

"Oh, I know h-" Flowey didn't let me finish.

"Just let her teach you. You shouldn't disappoint her." I couldn't see Flowey's face, but I said "Okay," anyways.

"So, what is Undertale?" I asked the monster. She gladly told me all the roles that Flowey told me, except she said, "Instead of battling the monster, you should talk to it to avoid conflict. Practice on the dummy. If you don't know what to talk about, you can ask me for some topics you can talk about."

"Ugh, why talk to them when you can just destroy them? You should have just said you already knew about Undertale."

"It was your idea for me to not tell her," I told Flowey.

"Er... let's pretend that didn't happen."

"Do you know how to play Undertale, little one?" The monster led me right in front of the dummy. "You start by letting your soul out of you. It may hurt at first, but otherwise, you'll be just fine. Now let your soul out to start Undertale with the dummy."

I followed her instructions. I let my soul out of me, which only hurt a little this time, then I looked back at my body and saw Flowey still on the right shoulder of my empty shell. The 2D box formed around me and all the other buttons and bars appeared.

Okay, I have to give the dummy a friendly conversation, I thought. I pressed "Act" and then pressed "talk."

"So, whatcha wanna talk about?" I asked the dummy. It did nothing. "How about I tell you an ice pun?" The dummy looked like it was gonna fall over. "Forget it. It already slipped my mind." The monster lady laughed at that.

"Great job, you can leave the game now."

"Did I do good?" I asked once my soul returned to my body.

"Yes! And that was a wonderful pun. I'll have to remember to write it in my joke book."

"Well, I was just trying to 'break the ice.'" The monster laughed again. "What's in the next room?"

The monster answered, "Another puzzle. But don't worry, I'll help you with it."

We continued into the next room, which looked really simple, with purple everywhere again and a hallway to the right. The monster led me down the hallway, where a huge frog jumped up to me and started Undertale.

"Kill it!" Flowey said loudly in my ear.

I pressed "Act" and then "compliment." "I love your eyes! They look so cool!" The monster lady came and ended the battle by glaring at Froggit, which made him walk away like a dog that was just scolded.

"You could have killed it! What's wrong with you?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to do the right thing," I said. Flowey crossed his leaves as if they were arms and turns away from me.

"You're no fun at all," he mumbled.

"Human?" The monster said. "Here, hold my hand for a moment." I put my hand in the monsters, and I felt like a baby holding their mothers hand. The monster led me through spikes, ("Don't touch those, there're very sharp." "How would you know?" "Um... from experience...") "Puzzles seen a little to dangerous for now," the monster said with a worried expression.

As we went into the next room, the monster said, "I have a favor to ask you..."

"Yes? What is it?"

"Walk to the end of this room once I'm out of sight. Forgive me for this." The monster ran, and once she was out of sight I ran after her. I couldn't see the end of the room until three minutes after I began chasing the monster.

"Hey look! There's a pillar over there! You should destroy it."

"Now is not the time, Flowey," I panted.

"Why not, my Monarch? It should be very easy. You could watch me destroy it instead, if you want."

"No thanks."

I finally made it to the end of the room. It felt like forever! Ugh, I'm out of breath. Not planning on doing that again. I'm gonna take a break for a bit...

"Wonderful! Thank you for trusting me!" There monster lady came out from behind the pillar Flowey told me to destroy.

I'm out of breath, monster lady! Give me a break to catch my breath...

"I wasn't going to leave you, little one. I was just testing your independence. Now, I must leave you here for a little while. I am going to tidy up my house; I didn't expect company so soon! Please do not leave the room."

"Okay," I said. "Is there any way for me to contact you while you're gone?"

"Oh, of course. Here, have a phone; I always carry an extra in case a human falls into the ruins. And I forgot to tell you my name! How could I? My name is Toriel!"