Chapter 13: Dummy!
"Always be aware of your surroundings." Chara let the blade soar through the air in a silent, deadly swing. "You'll have to twist with the blade to build up the necessary energy, so you won't be able to always keep your eyes on the opponent. Remember their movements, their attack patterns, and try to anticipate each and every move." The child twisted their body, striking the air in a horizontal line. Words drifted from their memories to their mouth; words that had been a mantra for years.
Chara smiled at Frisk. "Knifes are usually used in short range combat. There are also throwing knifes, of course, but once you've thrown them, you'll pretty much have to do without them till the end of your fight. Using a regular knife, you'll have to be fast to hit your target." Chara turned in a fluid twist, slashing at an imaginary enemy with force. "Use your movements to enhance the strength of your attacks." The child turned towards a fresh dummy, about twice the size as them. "Focus all of your emotions, all of your animosity on your attack and then hit it." Chara let the knife come down as they tipped their body over just a bit, letting gravity do the rest. Their blade cut through in a clean slash, revealing cotton to the world. Chara grinned, turning to Frisk. "So, you think you wanna try it out?"
As it turned out, the combat station was way better equipped than anything Chara ever had in the underground. That shouldn't have been a surprise. Even though life still seemed like a huge pile of crap, a knife in hand and twirling through rows of dummies, Chara felt their worries melt away. This was fun; actual fun that the child hadn't experienced for what felt like a very long time.
They moved forward, aiming at the right leg of a dummy. Their power had never been special. Chara hadn't expected it to be. But seeing their adoptive brother hold a flame of magic in his hand for the first time, grinning at them expectantly, Chara had known that they would never be as strong as him. And it was ok. It truly was. Azzie could do amazing things with his magic. It was so colorful and vibrant. And the underground had brought color to Chara's life too. Color that they didn't know was missing until then. Asriel had always been the stronger one.
The child ducked low, slicing open the dummy's leg with a controlled swing. But Azzie shouldn't need to be strong. It shouldn't matter. Yet, in this world, it did.
Chara ran on, falling into their training and dancing from one form to another. The child had seen what humans had to do to survive on the surface. To be strong meant to be cruel for the sake of your own survival. And the child could never wish that fate onto their brother.
A new dummy popped up behind them. Gradually stretching their arm as they turned, Chara observed the light as it reflected off their blade before the weapon buried itself in its new enemy. So Chara had to be stronger than their brother. How else were they supposed to shield him from the cruelty of humanity? At the very least they had to try. Mom and dad never liked weapons. Monsters relied on magic and even then, it was rarely used in combat. But then another human fell down. They were the second one to ever enter the underground. And though their recovery from the fall took far longer than Chara's, they stayed patient.
The child tugged at the hilt of their knife, bracing for the moment it would slide out of the dummy. Chara took a step back as it came free in a sharp motion. Although having another human show up was curious, the most interesting thing was what they brought. As mom and dad considered it a toy, their parents never confiscated the plastic knife. Chara suspected that they would have, if they had ever noticed whenever the injured child snuck out at night. Even wrapped in bandages, the second human waited for hours at a time for the Dreemurr couple to fall asleep. Then they would take their toy and retreat to the garden.
Chara went on, caught in the familiarity of their movements. Enemies flashed by and their muscles worked in harmony. It felt good to strike something else than air for once; have their enemies take on a solid form. Back then, Chara had watched the other human stab at the air for countless nights. The first fallen child always tried to be in bed again before the second human noticed. Though each and every night, Chara would sneak out after the older human again. They had felt so sneaky, so clever back then. After some time, it almost felt like a game. During one such night, Chara leaned against an old pillar again, sticking their head tentatively out from behind it to see the show of precision and power in front of them. Even though the ruins had still been lively back then, no monster came out to those parts that late at night.
The child still remembered how they had grinned as the patient one struck the air with a wide swing. They had never seen someone fight like that. It was so precise, so effective. The patient one seemed to pause a bit, red bow bouncing in the light of a nearby torch. "By now you should know the basic movements." A pair of cyan eyes found red ones. "But observing is different than acting. Why don't you give it a try?"
Of course, Chara wasn't happy about being discovered. But their disappointment was short lived as they got to swing the toy knife for the first time. Their movements were sloppy at first, but gradually they improved. And for the first time in their life, Chara felt the tiniest bit of power.
Over time, the two of them didn't need to hide their training anymore. The patient one named it a game and mom and dad were just happy that Chara had made another friend other than Asriel. Chara had been truly happy. They should have known better.
The child sprang forward in the here and now, ripping their blade through a world of cotton. After all, the other child had not only been a teacher. They had also been a human.
Chara plunged their knife into another dummy. They had liked them.
Their blade was forcefully ripped out. They had trusted them.
And yet the patient one had only brought suffering. Humans always did that.
Countless monsters fell that summer as the capitol refused to trade any food. And it was all that one human's fault.
Chara's knuckles whitened as their grip on the knife tightened. How foolish they were, thinking good of a human like that.
Their knife struck forward, tearing away cotton. Chara chuckled. What a dummy they had been.
The first fallen child raised their eyes to the wooly mayhem they had caused. Never again. They would never make that same mistake again.
Some tributes had stopped to stare in their direction. Looking the observers steady in the eyes, Chara took a step back from their dummy, raised their knife and smiled.
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Happy new year and sorry for the wait!
Life has decided to switch to hard mode again, so updating has kind of taken a step back for the time being. Don't worry, there are still some chapters in stock. As such, there shouldn't be any major delays, but delays nonetheless. I apologize for any forgotten updates that may occure due to that in the future.
On a different note, a big thank you to our second reviewer of 'May the strongest rise above'! Any and all comments always make my day. As to why there isn't much going on around the fav, follow and review sections: My best guess, due to the traffic stats, is that this story simply isn't that easy to find. There's a fairly stable number of reappearing readers (hi there!) and a lot of the people stumbling over this story seem to stick around. It's just that searching in the crossover section of these two fandoms probably isn't that popular. Which is why I'm even happier whenever someone decides to leave a comment or decides to give this story a read~