Chapter 17
Battle of Determinations
Chara and Frisk both stood in the forcefield quietly, awaiting for the fight to start up again. Frisk held her stick in both of her hands, having no other weapon, but believing that she could be able to defeat Chara, even with just that. Chara held his sword quietly, the yellow eye it had staring at Frisk quietly, as if awaiting for her to do or say something.
All of Frisk's friends and Chara's brother watched in anticipation, holding their breaths as they waited for the fight to continue again. They had just literally watched their friend stand up from an assault that surely should have killed her... any other one of them would surely have died from that assault. But Frisk's determination burned stronger than that of anybody else in the room.
"...In all honesty, I'm not even sure why you continue to fight for these beings." Chara said as his sword's eye seemed to widen. "You could have been saving yourself and all your friends a lot of pain if you had just given up and came to me peacefully."
"...Maybe so." Frisk said. "But I would be causing the entire world so much pain if I did... this isn't just about destroying all of the humans in the world. You wouldn't stop at just destroying every last human on the planet. You and I killed all those monsters in the Underground once... there's no doubt that you wouldn't mind doing that all again if you were given the chance."
"Is that so?" Chara said with a hum. "...So, you're fighting for both the sakes of the monsters and the humans... good. Then that will be two races that you let down as soon as you lose."
"That's not going to be happening." Frisk said as she spun her stick around in her hand. "Let me tell you what's going to happen, Chara. You can either give up here and now, and release the souls inside you, and we all can go about our merry lives... or we can fight again, and you can be defeated by me."
"You're making a terrible mistake if you think you can beat me." Chara said as he tightened his grip on his sword and brought it behind him once again. "I will admit, I'm quite impressed that you were able to survive my first onslaught the way you did... but this time, I'm going to make sure that doesn't happen. If I have to cut you into a hundred pieces and crush every single one of them until you die, I'll do it. Either way, your soul is mine."
"We'll see about that. I'm not going to give up, no matter what. Even if you crush my body into a million pieces, I will never give up."
"Bah! I've heard enough out of you." Chara said as his tail began to sway fast and irritatedly at Frisk's words. "You've had more than enough time to talk and more than enough time to live... the time of mercy and hope for the world is over. Now... now it's time to fight!"
"Hmph... as you wish... Chara." Frisk said as she stood, ready for Chara to make his first move.
"...D-do you guys think F-Frisk can do this?" Alphys questioned as she stared on as the two 'humans' were getting ready to battle once again.
"Of course she can, Alphys." Papyrus said. "After all, she was able to get past I, the Great Papyrus, back in Snowdin Forest. If she can do that, she can do anything."
"Yeah... besides, that punk has to hide behind those souls to destroy one human, and even then, he can't kill her." Undyne said as she stood there. "...That punk Chara doesn't stand a chance. Not as long as Frisk keeps determined and we all keep believing in her."
"...Hm?" Chara raised his eye in confusion as he continued to stare at Frisk, who just stood there, holding her stick defensively. "...What are you waiting for?" Chara questioned. "...Are you going to make your move, or are you just going to stand there and do nothing?"
"...Even when I don't have any choice, I really don't want to do this, Chara." Frisk said with a sigh and looked at all her friends, then back to Chara. "Come on... this whole fight is meaningless... what exactly will killing all of humanity accomplish for you? That's not going to change the fact that your mother and father treated you the way they did."
Chara gave a sigh and a shake of his head. "I'm doing you a favor, Frisk... you and the other Human Souls are going to be a part of the cleansing of the world from the filthiest creatures to inhabit it... if only I could get you to see that... but since you can't..." He leapt at Frisk suddenly with his sword pointing down, in the hopes of slicing Frisk into two halves.
Frisk was just barely able to roll out of the way of the attack. She could almost have felt the blade scratch at her shirt. If she had been any slower, she might have been dead. She knelt down and glanced at Chara as he just stood there and pulled his sword up from the ground. The demon had a prime moment where he could have caught her off guard then and there and kill her on the spot, but instead, he just stood there, with a smirk on his face. It was clear that he wanted Frisk to start fighting back.
Frisk got to her feet and stood bravely before Chara, holding her stick up defensively. After a few more seconds, Chara's smirk faded and was replaced with a frown that showed confusion, annoyance, and disappointment all at the same time.
"Frisk... what are you doing?" Papyrus called to her from outside the barrier that kept him from helping her out. "You cannot afford to give your enemy an opportunity to strike."
"Papyrus is right, Frisk." Undyne called in there. "Get to kicking his punk ass!"
"...Yeah... I'm with your friends on that one." Chara said with a frown. "This game is a lot less fun when my opponent isn't fighting back." He went and charged at her again, swinging horizontally twice this time, Frisk just barely being able to duck out of the way. A few strands of her hair were cut, but she knew that these attacks weren't aimed to kill her. Chara was trying to provoke her, and she knew it. The demon wanted to have some sick enjoyment out of this.
After the attack, Frisk began to back up, getting some distance from Chara. The demon's frown deepened, almost into a pout. "Is this some kind of joke to you?" he questioned. "Come on... at least let me have some fun with this before you die." He did an attack that was familiar to Frisk, slowly swaying his left hand from his right side to his left, a trail of magical fire appearing from it and flying towards Frisk.
Frisk was able to dodge most of the fire, but one of the balls of flames was able to strike her, setting a searing pain throughout her entire body. It was nothing new, as both Asgore and Toriel were known to be able to do fire magic like that. However, Chara's felt much more ferocious and powerful, unsurprisingly. She was hurting quite a bit now, but it was nothing that would keep her down. She looked up at Chara again, still refusing to make any actions.
"...I'm giving you a fighting chance here, trying to make this more fun and fair for me, and here you are, just dodging my attacks and refusing to fight." Chara said with a sigh and a shake of his head. "...I was honestly expecting that you would put up some fight to try and protect yourself... but I guess that's just not happening... if you won't even let me have fun with this in the slightest bit... then I guess I'm just going to have to end this game here and now."
He began to slam his sword to the ground, and each time he hit the ground with his sword, it formed huge balls of dark purple shadow energy. He had formed a total of five of them before stopping and giving a grin at Frisk, who just took a few steps back. They looked too big for her to dodge, and she wasn't sure if she'd be able to find a way around them.
"Let's see you scurry your way out of this." Chara said as he thrusted his hand forward and all five of the shadowy balls began to close in around Frisk. Her eyes searched for a place where she could get in between them and dodge, but there were very few spots that gave her a chance to escape as the balls of energy were closing in on her.
Chara gave a triumphant smirk as he kept his hand forward, thinking that he had Frisk completely trapped. His smirk, however, soon faded when he felt another feeling of resistance inside his body. He glanced at his hand, and he saw that for whatever reason, all five of his finger tips were glowing yellow as they were automatically pointing to the location of the shadowy balls of energy. Chara tried to retract his arm, but for some reason, it was completely frozen in place. He couldn't move it.
"What the-" he started, but couldn't finish it before out from his pinkie came a yellow bullet-like blast of energy that hit one of the balls of energy and sent it off course, crashing into the forcefield that the elemental creatures had formed and exploding far enough from Frisk that it couldn't harm her.
As Chara stared in shock as his pinkie stopped glowing yellow after the blast and he was able to move it again, his thumb also fired one of those blasts at another one of the balls. This blast punctured the shadowy ball easily and blew it up on contact, making Frisk flinch as it exploded much closer to her than the first two had, but she still wasn't harmed.
His ring finger and his index finger fired their blasts simultaneously, and the two of them had hit two of the energy balls in a way that caused both of them to fly upwards, just barely missing the hairs of Frisk's head as they were forced to fly above them. Instead of exploding once they came into contact with the forcefield, the two bounced off of it and began to fly back towards Chara, faster than they had been heading for Frisk. Chara, with his hand still frozen in place, had no way to dodge them. Having no other alternative than to attack them and take an explosion rather than a direct hit, he swung his sword at them the minute both of them came into range.
As to be expected, as soon as his sword slashed through the two balls, they exploded right towards Chara, damaging his body slightly and forcing him back a few feet. As Chara's body was being dragged back from the force of the two explosions, his middle finger fired its blast that hit the remaining ball of energy. Due to Chara being dragged back a few feet from the explosions, however, the blast wasn't able to hit the ball in a way that would either destroy it or reflect it in a different direction, and only distorted its path slightly.
This distortion on the ball's path allowed Frisk to be able to just barely get out of the way from it. The shadowy energy scraped against her arm and caused her some pain, but it wasn't something that was going to keep her from fighting Chara with all of her strength. Missing its target, the ball continued on its distorted path and hit the forcefield, exploding on contact just like the first one.
As the smoke from all five of the explosions had faded, all of the spectators were able to catch a glimpse of Chara, growling while he had several tears and burn marks on his clothing. Frisk held her arm as it hurt a bit, but she stood strong, and in seemingly better condition than Chara was in.
"That's two of them already..." Asriel said as he watched on. "...If this keeps up, all the souls are going to rebel against him before this fight is over."
Chara heard Asriel's words and looked at Frisk for a little bit. "...Oh." the demon said as he began to laugh in an amused matter. "Hahahahaha! I now see what you're doing by not attacking me. You're trying to stay alive and bide time in the hopes of having my souls rebel against me so you can actually have a fighting chance. I should have known. Even without me pulling your strings, you can be quite the clever one when you want to be."
He pointed his sword at Frisk as she stood there, her stick still in hand as she watched and listened quietly. "You thought that you would be clever and try to outsmart me, didn't you? Well, I'm afraid that that's not going to work, little girl. I've been around this earth as a soul long before you ever existed, and my intellect is far more than what you could ever imagine, as is my strength. When this fight is done, you shall have the privilege of adding to my strength, and finally bringing into full circle the plans of mine that you started up when you decided to-"
Without any warning whatsoever, Frisk suddenly hurled her stick right at Chara, getting it to go into his right eye. This immediately made the demon stop talking. After a few seconds of quiet, he dropped his sword, letting a loud thud be heard from it as it landed to the ground. "...FUCK!" he shouted as he put his hand over the eye that had the stick in it, opening his fingers so that the stick was in between the space in it. "Ow! My eye! My freaking eye!" He held his one hand over his eye while his other grabbed at the stick and began to pull on it, trying to get it out without ripping his eye right out of the socket.
Chara was able to rip the stick out of his eye without popping it right out of his eye socket. His eye was slowly oozing black ink-like blood, almost like tears as he looked at Frisk in shock. "...Sorry. I missed." Frisk said while rubbing the back of her head. "I was trying to aim for your mouth... oh well... I guess I was able to get you to shut up either way."
All of Frisk's friends stared quietly as they heard her say those words. All of them were shocked to have heard that. "...D... did you g-guys... hear that?" Alphys questioned.
"That... that doesn't sound like Frisk at all." Toriel said. She could never remember a time where Frisk told anybody to shut up.
"...Oh." Chara said with a little chuckle as he held out the stick a little bit for Frisk to see. "...You're getting a little bit hostile, aren't you?" he questioned. "...Or perhaps... you're finally starting to show just how you truly feel about me."
"Look, Chara." Frisk said, much more firmly and almost threateningly, sending a chill down the spines of her friends. They never heard her talk like this. She was always so nice and friendly to everyone... she never got this mad. "I'm getting sick and tired of this 'game' of yours, as you like to call it... it's clear that you're not going to let me help you no matter what I try... if you're not going to cooperate with me, then I'm just going to have to beat some sense into you."
"Frisk..." Asriel said as he stared at the inside of the forcefield in worry. Frisk was starting to let Chara get into her head.
"...Now... here's what we're going to do." Frisk said as she held her hand out. "You're going to give my stick back to me... and we're going to continue on fighting... and I'm going to knock some sense into you, and save you, whether you like it or not... now... give me my weapon. Now."
Chara gave a gleeful chuckle. "Yes. I knew you had it in you." he said. "Finally. This may be a bit of fun after all." He tossed Frisk her stick, and she was just barely able to catch it in both her hands. He then got his sword up from the ground and held it in his right hand.
Frisk then looked at Toriel and Asgore, and then to Asriel "...Sorry, my friend." she said to him. "...I have no other choice... I can't just keep dodging forever, and the souls aren't going to have any chances of doing their thing in time if I don't soften him up now."
"F-Frisk." Asriel said. "...Please... be careful... you're our only hope left."
"I know, Asriel... I know." Frisk said with a nod and a sigh. She then looked back at Chara. "...So... if I recall correctly, it was your turn?"
Chara gave a nod. "Yes, I believe so." he said as he held his sword up and thought of an attack that he would make. After a few seconds of thought, he gave a smirk and held his sword out towards Frisk, and the yellow eye opened wide and began to glow. After a few seconds, a purple misty figure that looked exactly like Frisk appeared and stood before Chara. Frisk stared at the figure quietly and gave a little wave of her right arm, which the figure did, except it waved its left arm, as if Frisk was looking into a mirror.
Chara then smirked and pointed to the figure's head. "Let's see what your puzzle solving skills do for you in this one." he said with a smirk as he held the sword up, about to slash the figure in half. Just before bringing the sword down, Frisk saw exactly what Chara was attempting to do. She quickly jumped to the right, which made the figure jump to its left as Chara slashed the sword down, successfully dodging the swing.
As the sword came down and hit the ground, red energy spikes began to shoot up from the ground one after another, moving in a straight line as they headed for the figure. "Oh, come on." Frisk said as she saw the spikes coming to the figure from behind. She turned around and began to take a step backwards to run and get some distance from the energy spikes, but as she did, she realized that at the spur of the moment, she had forgotten that the figure worked as a mirror image. If she ran back to try to get away from the spikes, she'd make the figure run right into them.
She turned around and tried to take a step forward to try and get some distance before it was too late, but she didn't have enough time before the spikes got to the figure and rose from the ground below it, piercing the figure in many places. As that happened, Frisk gave a gasp and a loud scream as she felt a searing pain shoot out throughout her body. It felt just like what it was, a whole bunch of needles piercing her body at one time. Her body began to bleed from several spots where the needles had pierced the dark purple figure.
All of Frisk's friends gasped and cringed as they heard her pained screamed and saw the blood. Toriel began to feel lightheaded from the fight and the thought of the pain that Frisk must be going through. It made her sick to her stomach, and she wanted to throw up so much.
Sans gave a little growl and leaned on the forcefield, his left arm on it. "...Come on, kid... you can do it." he said quietly.
"Aw, what a shame." Chara said with a chuckle as the figure and the spikes disappeared without a trace, save for the pain Frisk felt and the slight bleeding she was experiencing now. "You were doing well when you figured out that it was a mirror image of you... you just forgot that detail at the point where it counted, and that's why you weren't able to-"
Before Chara finished, Frisk was able to get up to him and was somehow able to get up to his face and smacked it as hard as she could with her stick, virtually slapping him across the face with it, and bringing his face to look at the left for a few seconds.
After a few seconds, Chara looked back at Frisk with a smug smirk on his face, with Frisk's attack doing almost nothing on him except give him a slight sting on his cheek. "...Care to take another shot at me?" Chara asked mockingly.
Frisk looked at his cheek, then glanced at her stick before looking back to Chara. "...Would you let me if I said yes?" she questioned.
"Ah... well, you know, if I wasn't working on such a tight schedule, I'd be more than happy to let you have another shot... but... you know... with two of the six souls already rebelling against me... kind of working on a schedule here." Chara said with that smug smirk before he turned his sword to its side and swung it up, smacking Frisk and sending her flying up from the force.
Frisk gave a scream of pain as she was sent flying up, going up so far that she smacked into the top of the barrier that she and Chara were trapped in. She fell back down to the ground with a crash. Any other person would have been broken at this point, but Frisk refused to go down so easily.
As she was attempting to get up, Chara suddenly appeared right by her and stepped on her legs with his right foot, immobilizing them from the force with which he kept on them, rendering Frisk unable to move.
"Come on, Frisk! Get up!" Undyne yelled as she was hitting the barrier to try to get her attention. "Don't let this punk beat you now!"
"You're our last hope, Frisk." Asgore called out to her. "Please! Stay determined!"
"As if you had a choice." Chara said as he lifted his sword up, aiming to stab and crush her chest again, just like the last time. Frisk tried to struggle away, but as she looked up at him, she noticed that there was a flash of light blue in Chara's pupils. Frisk got the feeling that whatever happens next, she would want to stay still and not move a muscle.
"This time, I'm not going to let you live through this one." Chara said as he raised his sword up higher. He glanced at his sword as he noticed it was beginning to glow light blue. He knew that one of the souls was trying something on him again, so he decided to not give it the chance and try to kill Frisk then and there before it got the chance to mess him up like the yellow one did. "Now... die!" he yelled as he raised the sword just a bit higher before plunging it down.
With the light blue glow of it remaining persistent, and Frisk not moving a single inch, the sword didn't do anything to her. It harmlessly passed through her as if she were a ghost. There was silence between Chara, Frisk, and all her friends as they all stared at the sword that was inside her, but not doing anything.
"...Uh... perhaps you weren't really paying attention to me." Chara said as he raised his sword out of her, the light blue glow still there. "I said die!" He tried to stab her in the chest again, Frisk still not moving an inch, and once again, the sword going through her without doing any damage. After a few seconds of hesitation, Chara lifted the sword up again and stared at Frisk, not moving for a while. "...1 2 3 die!" he counted very quickly as he tried to stab her once more, only to get the exact same result as he did the other two times.
"...Well, ain't that a fat load of Grade A bullcrap." Chara said as he lifted the sword out of Frisk again, and began to shake it a little bit, trying to get the blue aura off of it. He became so focused on shaking off the power of the Light Blue soul, he didn't notice that he had lifted his foot off of Frisk's legs and put it to the ground with his other. Frisk gave a silent sigh and mentally gave the soul a thanks for saving her head.
After a few seconds of shaking, the light blue aura disappeared from Chara's sword. "Ah... there we go." he said as he began to turn back to Frisk. "Now... where were we, little-" When he fully turned around, however, Frisk was already a good distance away. She was able to get away from him while he was busy dicking around with his sword.
"...That was the Soul of Patience that just rebelled, wasn't it?" Frisk asked. "...That means that half of the souls are already rebelling against you... it won't be long now until you lose control of all of them."
"Grrr... I'm letting you get away with too much, apparently." Chara said as he held his sword towards her. "I'm obviously not going at you as hard as I should be."
"And neither am I." Frisk said as she held her stick towards him, to match the pose of him holding his sword. As she stood there, she gave a grimace as she felt a pain in her stomach, not really caused from any of the attacks Chara had just inflicted on her. "You might want to consider giving up now, Chara. Trust me, you're not going to like what I'm about to do now." she said.
"What? You think I'm afraid of what you can do to me?" Chara questioned with a smirk as he held his sword to the side and stood in a bit of a mocking pose, as if to try and egg Frisk into whatever she was planning to do. "Go on ahead... do whatever your little heart feels like."
"Well... alright... but you asked for it." Frisk said. She remained standing there, both her and Chara staring at each other dead in the eyes. All of Frisk's friends held their breaths as they watched in anticipation, waiting to see what exactly Frisk was going to try to do to beat Chara.
All of them were absolutely baffled by what Frisk did. She put her stick down to the side and sat down. Then, out of her pocket, she was somehow able to pull out what appeared to be a little electronic stove and a little pot. She went over to the barrier and filled the pot with some of the water that was used to make it.
"...What?..." Chara questioned as he watched her put the pot on the little stove and turned it on. "...What... are you... doing?" Chara asked.
"What does it look like?" Frisk questioned as she took out of her pocket a pack of Instant Noodles and grabbed her stick again, and began to give a few crushes and whacks at the pack to make sure the noodles weren't all bunched up into one big square when it was time to boil them. "I'm making myself a pack of Instant Noodles."
"...You... can't be serious." Chara questioned as he stared at her, continuing to hit the packaging that had the noodles in them. He looked up at all of Frisk's friends, who looked back to Chara, obviously just as flabbergasted as he was. "...We're in the middle of a fight... a fight to determine the entire fate of humanity and monsters alike... and you... you're going to start cooking noodles right in the middle of it?"
"I haven't eaten anything since last night. I'm getting pretty hungry." Frisk answered without looking at him as she gave a quick check to see if the water was boiling before going back to hitting the packaging. "Besides, after getting launched into the air and slammed into the ground, I could use a little healing."
"...You know those things are going to take you a few good minutes to make, right?... A few minutes that you're expecting me to wait and do absolutely nothing while you just heat those up and eat them... what exactly makes you think that I'm not just going to attack you either while you're eating or making the noodles, and kill you while your guard is down?"
"I dunno." Frisk responded simply as she stopped hitting the packaging and just watched the pot, waiting for it to boil.
All of Frisk's friends slowly turned their heads to each other and then looked back into the forcefield, seeing Frisk just sitting there and Chara standing there, still trying to process all of this. They supposed that with her making and eating the noodles taking a few minutes, to the very least, the souls might have a few extra minutes or so to be able to rebel against Chara... that is... if Chara is somehow able to wait that long.
For whatever reason, Chara seemed to be willing to wait for a little bit and let Frisk do what she was doing. He gave a sigh and stabbed his sword into the ground, the tip going into the floor and standing upright perfectly when he let his hand off of it, and sat down, crossing his legs and resting his elbows on his knees and his cheek on the palm of his right hand as he waited.
"...You know you don't really have to boil those at all, right?" Chara questioned. "They're much better when they're dry."
"I honestly doubt that." Frisk said, giving a quick glance to him before looking back to the pot, waiting for it to boil. Chara just gave a roll of his eyes and a sigh in response as he sat there, waiting for the pack of Instant Noodles to finish.