Chapter 21

Dark energy rushed towards her and Morgan crouched, threw her hands forward, and summoned her shield once more. This time, however, instead of forming it into a disc right in front of her, she changed the angle and planted it in the floor. It stretched out diagonally, and as the darkness reached her and slammed into the shield, the force of its impact sent it streaming off at the angle she had created and it went soaring harmlessly over her head. Morgan allowed herself a small smile of triumph. She couldn't take the girl's attacks head on, couldn't cancel them out with equal force, but for the moment she was able to redirect them enough to avoid taking any hits herself. The girl's spell collided with the back wall of her room and Morgan's eyes widened as it simply blew the wall clear off the building.

The sound of the impact reminded her of an explosion, and it was quickly followed by the sounds of wood and stone crashing on the ground below. She refocused her attention on the strange girl and gathered more magic into her palms, anticipating her next attack. The girl only smiled and launched more dark attacks at her. Her dark magic seemed to be able to take on any number of forms. It lashed out at her as orbs, whip-like tendrils, blades, and even simple streams like the fire she had called up earlier.

Morgan assumed her defensive stance and began to block and dodge. She moved from side to side, redirecting any attack she wasn't fast enough to avoid. The entire onslaught lasted for maybe a full minute before the girl paused again. She folded her arms and cocked her head to one side, and her smile threatened to spilt her face.

"Wow, you are good!" she said excitedly. "Its such a shame that talent like yours is being wasted in service to those pathetic gods."

Morgan only stared at her, breathing heavily. "Damn," she thought. "I can't keep this up much longer. One more assault and I'm done for."

Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced at the huge opening the girl's attacks had created in the wall. If she could just find an opening, she should be able to escape through it. She could already hear the sounds of confused and alarmed voices coming from outside. The commotion seemed to have awakened her fellow acolytes. If she could just make it outside…

Her thoughts were interrupted as a mass of thorny vines shot towards her. She dove to her left, barley evading the attack. Wood crunched and splintered as the vines came crashing down and drove right through the floor. Fending off the numerous attacks from the girl had caused her to momentarily forget about the flower creature still in the doorway. Now she realized the only reason she had survived this long was because the two of them had been attacking her separately instead of coordinating their efforts.

As she watched, though, the girl's face flashed with anger and she turned her head towards the flower. "Stay out of this!" she shouted. "If I want your help I'll ask for it! Don't ruin my fun!"

"Now!" Morgan thought. This was the chance she had been waiting for. She turned and bolted for the huge hole in the wall. The girl was quick though. "Get back here!" she yelled, and she threw yet another dark orb at her back. Morgan threw her hands down and behind her as she ran, and called up one of the first spells she had ever learned. She unleashed a simple blast of kinetic magic at the floor and the force of the spell lifted her off her feet and propelled her through the air. She flew through the opening and began falling to the ground, the dark orb missing her only by a few inches. It continued onward, sailing off into the night. Morgan put her arms out and summoned her dome shield again. Her dome hit the ground and broke under the impact, but it had absorbed most of the force of her fall. She landed in a heap and slowly sat up. She had the wind knocked out of her, but other than that, she was fine. Well, maybe not so fine. She still had demonic killer child on her tail, after all.

"I need to get help," she thought desperately. "If she comes after me…"

As if on cue, she heard the girl's voice behind her. "Did you really think you could escape that easily?"

She was floating a few feet off the ground, a dark aura surrounding her entire body. She crossed her arms and shook her head, as if she was scolding a misbehaving toddler. "Seriously," she said. "What made you think you had any hope of living to see tomorrow?"

Morgan said nothing. What could she say? She clenched her teeth together and stood slowly, shaking a bit as she faced the child.

"Well," she thought, "if I'm going to die here, at least I'll die on my feet and not cowering like a small child."

"Ah," the girl sighed. "That's a nice look on your face. So determined to make a valiant last stand. Reminds me of myself, really."

She held out her hand to the side and a black scythe appeared out of thin air. Black flames engulfed its blade, and she rose it over her head. "Farewell, librarian," she said, and she brought the scythe down, unleashing a massive wave of darkness at the helpless acolyte before her.

Morgan closed her eyes, waiting for that tide to reach her, consume her, and send her on to the afterlife. She couldn't move, couldn't block it; all she could do was wait for the inevitable. Time seemed to slow as she realized death was coming for her. That she would leave so many things unfinished, so many questions unanswered. As she realized this, she was filled with despair. A despair that seemed to drown out every other emotion. The girl's spell had yet to reach her, but she cried out in agony anyway.

Flowey reveled in that scream as he watched it all unfold. He'd discovered that there was one thing that made him feel again. One thing that filled him with excitement and ecstasy: despair. As the former God of Hope, he had despised despair, but now he found it exhilarating. In fact, he had come to think of himself as the new God of Despair. The librarian's scream was like music to his ears, and he cackled in pleasure as it washed over him.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flicker of blue, and his excitement abruptly vanished.

Chara had made one mistake, though she wasn't aware of it yet. The spell that she had thrown at Morgan as she jumped out of the window had missed, and since it had never hit anything it had kept going. It had traveled across the sprawling grounds of the temple and even flew right by the main shrine itself… and smacked right into one the wards Sans had set up.

Death had been on the other side of the world, finishing up his reaping for the day when the psychic alarm went off in his head. He hadn't even bothered to turn around when it happened, he simply teleported as quickly as he could. Now, as he appeared on the scene, his eye blazing and his scythe in hand, he found himself grinning.

"Finally," he thought.

He had appeared right at the ward that had been set off, but it didn't take him long to locate Chara's energy. He flew through the night sky, faster than any merely mortal creature could have done, and he reached the library quickly. He saw Chara holding a scythe similar to his own, unleashing some sort of attack. A moment later, he saw the object of her wrath, the helpless acolyte that just stood there waiting for it to arrive. To any human eye, everything was happening to fast to keep track of, too fast to do anything about it. Sans was a god, however, and even among his brethren his reflexes were almost second to none. He took everything in and understood it in an instant, and the night sky was suddenly lit with a azure fireball.

That fireball was what had drawn Flowey's attention and he began to shout a warning but stopped himself. Chara had better reflexes than he did, and she had likely noticed their archenemy's appearance already. Besides, he was momentarily stunned by what he was seeing. He watched in confusion as Death launched that mass of flame not at Chara, but at the spell she had cast at the librarian. The two attacks collided, and the resulting force knocked the librarian back a few more feet, but she was otherwise unscathed. Flowey's eyes narrowed, as his mind considered the implications of that seemingly simple act. After all this time, Death was still more concerned with saving the life of a random human rather than attempting to finish Chara off? He shook himself and quickly moved down beside Chara. He'd consider that later. Right now, he had to devote all of his attention of the situation at hand.

Chara had indeed noticed the God of Death before Flowey had, but not by much. She had been just as surprised when his blue magic lit the sky, and she had also realized that the only reason she hadn't just taken a huge hit was the fact that Death had wasted his opportunity saving that pathetic acolyte.

Well, all the better for her then. If the soft idiot wanted to protect the acolytes that badly, there was no way he'd take her down here. Not when she had dozens of potential hostages to choose from. She felt Flowey move in beside her, his vines thrashing. She smiled and turned back to face Death. He'd wasted his opportunity yet again, and now they had the upper hand.

Confident in her ability to survive the situation she said, "Hey there, skull-face. Miss me?"

"Oh, you have no idea," Sans replied, brandishing his scythe at her.

Chara smiled and readjusted her grip on her own scythe, holding it in a guard position. "What do you think, bone-brain? I've got one of those now, too. I wonder who it looks better on?"

"Why don't you come over here and find out?"

"Please, Sans, I'm not that stupid. Give me a little credit here."

"I don't really feel like humoring a murdering lunatic like you."

Chara's eyes narrowed with renewed fury. "I'm the murderous one? Do you have any idea how hypocritical that makes you sound? Murder wasn't even real till you came around! How dare you judge me like that!"

Sans smiled. She was getting angry, losing control of her emotions, and that was exactly what he wanted. "I dare to judge you all I like, Chara. Kinda my job."

"Damn you!" Chara shouted. "I'll grind your bones into dust! You don't know anything about me!"

"I know plenty," Sans replied. He started walking slowly toward her as he talked. "Like how you built shrines and temples across the land. How you would travel from village to village, always preaching, a never-ending pilgrimage. How people adored you. You'd never take money from them, but could never refuse a gift a chocolate. That was your favorite food, wasn't it?"

Chara began to tremble. "Shut. Up." she said through clenched teeth.

Sans kept walking, the distance between them growing smaller and smaller. His voice grew softer, almost gentle. "You loved the gods like no one else. You were happy. You had parents, and siblings who all loved you. What would they think if they could see you now? Do you really want your legacy to end like this? Known as the acolyte who betrayed the gods? No, who betrayed her own family?"

Vines suddenly ripped towards him, but he swung his scythe with a contemptuous flick of his wrist. Blue flame incinerated them and continued on to strike Flowey right in the face. The flower flew back and slammed into the wall of the building. He fell to the ground, unmoving, dazed from the impact.

Sans turned back to Chara. "Let me help you, Chara. We can end this here and now. Humans are meant to die, there's nothing you or I can do about it. Please, let me give you rest."

She let a scream of fury and launched herself at him. Her movements were easy to read, and he parried her strikes effortlessly, using her own momentum against her. He reached out with his magic, grabbing hold of her body and slammed her into the library wall, where she fell down right next to Flowey.

She staggered back to her feet. She had stopped shaking and her head was bent, eyes staring at the ground, her breathing ragged. "Rest?" she murmured. "I can be… at rest?"

"Yes," Sans said, appearing right in front of her. "Accept your death, and I can free your soul. It is meant to be."

She shuddered, and her arms fell to her sides. Her scythe dropped to the ground.

"Chara Dreemurr," said Sans, his eye aflame. "Your time has come."

He, whose touch was death, reached out his hand and laid it gently on her forehead.

"Finally."