Chapter 19: The Saint and The Sinner.
"Pap, get out of the way!" Called Sans.
"SANS! THAT'S ENOUGH! I KNOW YOU HAVE EVERY REASON TO KILL HER, BUT THIS ISN'T THE WAY TO END THIS." Said Papyrus as he stood in front of Sans and began walking towards Chara. Chara released her locket and threatened Papyrus with her knife. "CHARA… I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE, AND I KNOW WHAT YOU PLAN TO DO; BUT I CANNOT BRING MY SELF TO HATE YOU." Said Papyrus as he continued to walk towards Chara. "TO BE HONEST, THE CLOSEST THING TO WHAT I FEEL, IS DISSAPOINTMENT." Chara was slightly surprised by this but did her best not to show it. "I KNOW THAT THERE IS STILL HOPE FOR YOU CHARA. I STILL BELIEVE IN YOU." Chara felt Frisk begin to fight for control again.
"Talking won't work Papyrus." Said Sans before Chara began to charge at Papyrus. "You have to dodge it. Don't just stand there! Dodge it!" Called Sans as Papyrus stopped his advance. Chara prepared for an attack when she saw Papyrus's right eye burn red with magic but was completely taken by surprise when instead he raised his arm and made her necklace float into the air. Seeing this made Chara stop her charge and drop her knife as she repeatedly jumped and tried to grab the locket, but she couldn't reach it.
"IT WILL ONLY BE SUSPENDED FOR A FEW MINUTES." Said Papyrus. Chara began to scream as tears ran down her face while she tried to grab the necklace, until she finally realized she couldn't reach it and began punching the ground like a child throwing a tantrum. "UMM, I'M NOT SURE HOW TO RESPOND TO THAT." Admitted Papyrus.
"Well, I'm recording it." Said Alphys as she recorded Chara's tantrum on her phone.
Chara finally stopped when she had exhausted herself. Papyrus then walked up to Chara, emitting an almost angelic glow, and said, "IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY OUTSIDE, BIRDS ARE SINGING, FLOWERS ARE BLOOMING. ON DAYS LIKE THIS, KIDS LIKE YOU, SHOULD BE SAFE WITH YOUR FAMILY!" Papyrus then pulled Chara into a tight embrace, despite her protest.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? LET ME GO! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!? I SAID LET ME GO YOU… you… Thank you." Chara's cries soon turned to gratitude from Frisk as she returned the hug and expelled Chara from her body.
"Frisk my child, is that you?" Asked Toriel.
"Yes, it's me mom." Said Frisk as tears ran down her face, washing away the blood from Chara's eyes. Papyrus finally let Frisk go and they both stood up, before Frisk fell back down and groaned in pain. "Ow! What the heck was Chara doing with my body?" Complained Frisk.
"Not much, what really matters is you're back." Said Undyne as she reverted to her normal form.
"Wait, how do we know you're really Frisk and not just Chara messing with us?" Asked Asgore. Frisk then gave him her signature flirting look, making him laugh.
"Yeah, that's Frisk alright." Joked Sans. "Listen kid, I'm sorry about giving up on ya back there."
"When did you give up on me?" Asked Frisk.
That's right! She doesn't remember what happened in that timeline! Realized Sans. "Sorry I just meant I didn't have the guts to stand up to Chara the way Pap did." Joked Sans. Frisk chuckled and didn't press any further. Wow, I think I just figured out why Frisk likes resetting so much. Thought Sans.
"SANS, I HAVE TO ASK, ARE YOU MAD AT ME FOR IGNORING YOU AND TALKING TO CHARA?" Asked Papyrus.
"Come on, how could I be mad at the coolest brother ever?" Asked Sans.
"I hate to spoil the moment, but Frisk, is Chara still inside you or something?" Asked Mettaton.
"No… Actually, I don't know what happened to her." Said Frisk. The group then froze in horror as they as they noticed that not only where Chara's knife and locket gone, but that her coffin was now empty.
"Dang she's fast." Commented Undyne.
"I don't believe it." The group heard Chara's voice echoing around the cave, but they couldn't see her anywhere. "That stupid saint pushed me out of Frisk's body."
"Oh, I see you finally picked a nickname for Papyrus." Replied Sans. Papyrus and Toriel bent down and wrapped their arms protectively around Frisk while the others spread out around them.
"Come out Chara!" Yelled Undyne.
"Y-yeah, w-were n-not s-scared o-of y-you." Whimpered Alphys as she shook in fear.
"But you should be." Said Chara as she stepped out of the shadows, back in her own body, letting most of the group see it clearly for the first time.
Chara looked remarkably similar to Frisk with only a few differences, such as rosier cheeks, slightly more prominent breasts, red irises, and being slightly taller. Chara was also wearing her green and yellow sweater, golden heart locket, black leggings, brown shorts, and a side holster with her gilded knife in it. "Hey, her eye isn't bleeding anymore." Commented Undyne.
"Do you want it to?" Asked Chara as she made her creepy face, only this time bloody tears ran down from both her eyes.
"That's disgusting; what the heck are you?" Asked Mettaton.
"Hehehe, I'm a soul eater, but I was born with the ability to change my face dramatically, though it always returns to the way it was originally." Explained Chara as her face returned to normal, but her left eye stayed black with a red iris.
"Why do you look so much like Frisk?" Asked Sans.
"The question you should be asking, is why does Frisk look so much like me? The answer is simple, when I heard Asriel crying for me to come back, I chose to be reincarnated." Explained Chara. "As you may have guessed, Frisk is who I came back as, that's why she was called to the mountain, and eventually I managed to gain my old memories back and separate from her."
"You're lying, there's no way Frisk came from you." Said Sans as he raised his left hand and summoned several Gaster blasters.
"Hehehe, still clueless. This reminds me of the first time me and you met face to face." Chuckled Chara.
"You mean… right now?" Asked Sans. "Because I'm pretty sure I would remember something like this."
"You would, if you were the same Sans as the first one." Said Chara. "I exist outside the flow of time and can enter the body of any version of Frisk there is. There are one hundred different timelines, each one slightly different from the others. In each timeline exists a Frisk with the power to change that timeline, but I'm the only Chara that exists. I've been through every timeline, and I know things that even you and Frisk are ignorant of."
"Is that so? Then why are you telling me this?" Asked Sans as he noticed Chara tensing her muscles as though she was in pain.
"What's the point of me remembering our first meeting if you don't?" Asked Chara.
"Sans, she's buying time for something." Whispered Alphys.
"I know." Replied Sans. "I've used too much power, and I need some time to recharge before I can stop Chara from resetting again."
"Let me tell you a story, about two young girls and a skeleton." Began Chara.
"That face… that's the face of someone who's died more times in a row then I can count." Mocked Sans as he stared down the large judgement hall at the genocidal human who had killed his friends. The human only growled in frustration as a response. "So, you're not much of a talker, huh?" Asked Sans. "I guess that's ok because kid… I gotta ask you something, before I kill you again. You've probably noticed by now that all this is going nowhere, I mean, I can't kill ya, since you keep resetting, and I'm sure not going to let you pass." The human tilted her head to the side and waited for Sans to finish speaking. "So, what I want to ask you is this, will you please just reset everything, to the very beginning? Bring everyone back, I'm tired of fighting and I know you are too. Please kid, just reset, that's all I ask." Pleaded Sans, making the human begin to tear up. "There must be some good in you right? That's what Papyrus believed." Said Sans, making the human start to cry. "All I'm saying is- Are you alright?" Sans changed his question halfway through the sentence as Frisk dropped her knife and fell to her knees sobbing. "Uh, kid?"
"She is not in control you know." Said a distorted voice from nearby.
"Sorry kiddo, what did you say? I didn't get that." Said Sans as he walked up to the human and kicked her knife away, unfortunately right to the spirit of Chara who stood behind a nearby column.
"Hehehe, you stupid skeleton. Are you deaf or something? I said, she is not the one in control." Said Chara as she stepped out from behind the column while making her creepy face, she then picked up her knife and walked over to Frisk.
Sans jumped back as his left eye began to burn blue with magic. "Who are you!? What did you do to the kid!?" Yelled Sans.
"Hehehehe, this is hilarious. You're the only one who can remember the resets, and you still don't know who I am?" Laughed Chara as she stopped making her creepy face. "You really are a comedian. You're a lot like your brother, too idiotic to save your own life."
"Heh, he really was very stubborn. Look, you have three seconds to leave the kid's body before I take you out." Threatened Sans.
"Hold it! You're not threatening me, are you? Because if you are…" Chara pulled Frisk in front of her. "Frisk here is going to pay for it."
"So be it." Said Sans before he summoned and fired a Gaster blaster at Chara and Frisk. Chara jumped to the side and Frisk followed like a puppet being pulled by strings. Sans then launched several bones at her, but Chara made Frisk deflect the bones with her knife. Frisk took a step back while deflecting the last bone and backed into Chara. However, to Chara's surprise she simply entered Frisk's body.
As Frisk's eyes turned from amber to red, Chara thought to herself, 'That will make things easier.' Chara then charged at Sans and slashed at him with her knife, but he used a shortcut to move out of the way. "You're really good a dodging, huh?" Said Chara.
"Well, it helps when you can teleport." Replied Sans from above Chara as he fired a Gaster blaster down at her. Sans jumped down from the Gaster blaster he was standing on and looked towards the crater that remained where Chara had previously stood. "Ugh, what am I doing? It's not like killing her does any good." Said Sans to himself. Sans waited for the timeline to reset again but was surprised when it didn't. "Uh… kid? You still alive in there or something?" Asked Sans as he continued to look at the crater. "No response, they're dead, but they didn't reset. There's no way they survived that… I don't believe it. Did I actually win?"
Sans felt a hand on his shoulder and was quickly spun around to see Chara, in a white tank top instead of her sweater, about to bring her knife down on him. 'How did she move so fast!?' Was all Sans had time to think before Chara cut open his chest.
"So… that's it huh? Well, I'm going to Grillby's." Said Sans weakly as he walked past Chara. "Oh, and kid, just so you know, I'll still remember you in the next timeline, and then, I'll be prepared to separate you from… Frisk, right? Huh, that's a nice name." Finished Sans before he fell to the ground. Frisk's left eye then became black with a red pupil as blood ran down from it. She had been fully taken over by Chara for the first time. Chara then began walking towards the crater Sans had made earlier, stopping to devour his heart along the way, then she reached into the crater and pulled out her now badly burned green and yellow sweater and put it back on.
"That version of Frisk gave me her soul in exchange for a true reset, and in the next run, Sans remembered and almost did manage to separate me and Frisk. I learned my lesson after that, and never told the other Sanses about me, but still. I managed to destroy all the monsters in ninety-nine of the one hundred timelines. I just have to do the same thing to this timeline and the true genocide run will be complete." Concluded Chara. "…but then again. It's not very common for a timeline to have Asriel alive in it." Realized Chara as her eyes both looked human for a moment. "So, I'd better get his soul before wasting time on the rest of you." Finished Chara as her left eye returned to being black with a red iris.
"Well, that's some story kid." Said Sans. "But I don't think you're telling me this just to reminisce. You keep tensing your body like you're in pain. Now I don't know what kept your body from deteriorating over the years, but it looks like it wasn't perfect. I think you're buying time for something, and trust me, I'm a bone-a-fide expert on that."
Chara swallowed nervously but tried not to show any weakness. "Are you really going to bet your friend's lives on that? The way I see it, you're Sans any hope of victory. GREAT NOW I'M DOING IT!" Yelled Chara, criticizing herself for making a pun.
"Nice pun, but I already know you're in a skele-ton of trouble; because your body still isn't prepared to fight." Said Sans as he summoned and fired a Gaster-blaster at Chara. However, Chara quickly jumped to the side to avoid the blaster, then she ran towards the rock wall closest to the underground's entrance.
"Too bad for you, but that was all the time I really needed." Said Chara. "You missed your chance to kill me comedian, and you won't get another." As Chara finished mocking Sans, she jumped onto and began running up the cave's rock wall.
"How is she doing that!?" Yelled Undyne as she threw a spear at Chara but missed.
"And more importantly, if she can do that, why did she take the long way to get here?" Asked Sans. Chara jumped and grabbed onto the ledge at the top of the cave and climbed out onto the surface.
Now this is more like it! Thought Chara as she made her escape.