The demon has awoken, and the world screams out for blood. Is it too late for Frisk the Undetermined? Who is this mysterious boy? And what has happened to Megan? Only time will tell, as Chara's fondest wish gets answered and she once again sees…

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Chapter 10: The Demon Inside

The world around them became dark, all color and items fading away. Frisk, wild-eyed, insane, grinning like a maniac, lunged with the dagger. Her best friend, murdered by that boy. She'd see how he liked it, how he felt about watching his blood drain out on the floor. It didn't matter anymore. She'd tried to be calm, tried to live an ordinary life, tried to keep her madness at bay.

But this boy and that blasted Yellow soul wouldn't leave her alone. She would rip them both to shreds, tear them both to smithereens. She couldn't do a genocide run if she wasn't the one in charge of the Underworld's destiny anymore. That job had clearly been handed to somebody else. Slashing out with her dagger, Frisk began to laugh.

A clang echoed across the void, and Frisk looked up in surprise. The knife had been blocked by the butt of a gun. A pistol. That could only mean one thing. This boy and Yellow were one in the same. If she cut down one, both of her offenders would fall. "Relax, Red. Kyle is telling the truth." Yellow's voice came out of the boy's mouth, teeth gritted. Blocking another strike, he said, "This body isn't Megan's, either. We have no idea where she is!" Block. Block. "YOU – NEED – TO – STOP!"

As all of this went on, the kid seemed utterly confused. He kept watching his body, as if trying to figure out why in the world it was moving without his willing it to. The blows kept coming one after another; Frisk laughing wildly as she pelted the dagger down again and again and again. "EARTH TO RED! YOU ARE FIGHTING THE WRONG PERSON!" Yellow screamed, his eyes flashing angrily. "LEAVE KYLE ALONE!"

Frisk was beyond hearing anything though. The only thought running through her head was "Kill. Kill. Kill." Her blade crashed against the pistol over and over again, sparks flying. She didn't seem to be getting anywhere, but she could care less. All she wanted was to see her knife sink into the flesh of this man who dared to get in her way. This man who had awakened her demons.

Of course the dust belonged to Megan. The man would say anything to make her stop. He couldn't be trusted. He was a liar, nothing but a liar. She needed to get stronger. Rage flashed in her eyes, and Kyle suddenly found himself stepping backwards. He was no longer able to keep up with her rapid slices. The longer they fought, the more her hatred grew, and in the void, there was a rule. The more you wanted to hurt somebody, the stronger you became.

Pacifism never solved the problems. Monsters were foolish, weak, feeble. Most of them were too dense to try and fix things themselves, relying on just a few to do everything for them. Cut down those few, and everything fell apart. She could no longer hear anything besides the clash of metal on gun, and the periodic, satisfying, slice of knife upon skin. Her brain was screaming at her.

Frisk lunged forward and grabbed at the gun, knocking it out of Kyle's hands. Something inside of him snapped. It seemed as if the Yellow soul had taken complete control. "I am not going to hurt you," he replied calmly. He'd stopped moving backwards, and instead of simply rolling with Frisk's swings, dodging them easily. He wasn't even taking steps, simply tilting his body around as if in a purposeful attempt to enrage her more. "And you are not going to hurt me."

Yellow jumped backwards suddenly, and Frisk dove forward, thrusting. He pushed Frisk's thrust out of the way with one hand. "Stop it. Before you hurt somebody that you care about." She spun around, and he dropped to the ground, pushing himself back up with his hands in a backwards flip. "THINK ABOUT YOUR FRIENDS, RED! Alphys… Mettaton…" He slipped to the side as Frisk lunged yet again. "You are a threat to everybody when you are this way."

Frisk leapt forward, bringing the knife down with both of her hands. "Papyrus," Yellow said, blocking both her arms with an upward X-block. Swinging his arms and causing her to stumble to the side, he said, "Sans. Don't forget what caused you to regain control. You do not want to make the same mistake again."

Frisk charged, swinging viciously and wildly. Flailing was not as effective as professional attacks, but it was much harder to block. But Yellow's maneuvers had gotten him exactly where he wanted to be. As she charged, he swung his foot forward, kicked the gun off the ground, caught it expertly in his hands, and pointed it at Frisk's head. "I will make you remember," he said coldly. And then he fired.

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The skeleton coughed, blood running out of the slash in his shirt. Standing over him, bloody knife in hand, thirteen year old Frisk stepped backwards, eyes shocked. Blood? What the heck? The skeleton looked up at her, and a shiver ran down her back. He wasn't looking at her with anger anymore, or hate. No… the look in his eyes was a mixture of pain and… sadness.

"So… I guess… that's it then, isn't it?" The skeleton struggled to his feet, while Frisk watched wide-eyed. But he didn't step towards her, didn't attempt to strike her again. Instead, he closed his eyes, as if accepting his fate. "Just… just don't say I didn't warn you, ok?" He turned and began to walk away from her, stepping slowly out of The Void.

Frisk just stood there, stunned, shocked, horrified. Blood… Her eyes hadn't left the blood as the skeleton spoke. The ash that covered her body began to feel heavier as well, the weight of all the lives she had taken. The obnoxious dancing robot, the courageous Undyne, the annoying but lovable Papyrus. Over a hundred runs, over a hundred failures, and somehow it was all ending… here. Dozens of years spent searching for a happy ending. And her closest friend during that time dying in front of her, by her own hand. Shame… So much shame…

"I'm going to Grillbys." Frisk heard the words, but they barely registered. Then he was gone from The Void, and she heard the words, "Papyrus, do you want anything?" Then he was gone. A moment later, the girl felt a surge of energy and power coursing through her body. The skeleton was dead.

"Good riddance," a now all too familiar voice said, and Frisk turned to see her companion on this nightmare mission standing next to her with a proud expression on her face. "Come Frisk, let's end this." Chara extended her hand, but Frisk stepped back defiantly. Chara looked confused, and stepped forward. "What are you doing?"

She had to get out of here. She had to escape. The horrible actions, the nightmarish scenes, slicing, ash, blood… Frisk looked down once again at the blood splattered on her shirt, and tears came to her eyes. She was a monster. She had to run. Had to escape. Hide from Chara. Hide from herself. Hide from the truth of what she had done.

Chara's eyes widened as she realized what Frisk was about to do, and rushed towards her. "No. WAIT!" But it was too late. Determination had set in.

"Reset," Frisk said confidently.

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The memory came rushing over Frisk, overwhelming all of her senses. That final moment when she had made the choice to retreat. The moment she had stopped trying to fight for anything. The moment when she'd given up. The moment… she'd killed her best friend. She looked up, and for the first time, her mind registered that the kid staring across at her wasn't any sort of threat. Despite everything she'd just done, he didn't appear at all hostile. He looked more… worried.

Quivering, Frisk stepped back and dropped the dagger. It made a clanging noise as it landed on the wooden floor of Megan's home. They were no longer in the void. How had it come to this? It had been five freaking years. She'd been a child back then, a foolish but well-meaning child. Five years of life, of maturing, of building a heavily structured wall around herself. Only to find out… none of it had mattered. She was still just as twisted as she was back then.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Frisk dropped to her knees, shaking and tears running down her cheeks. How dare she cry? She was a monster, a cruel, vicious monster. But the tears wouldn't stop. She wrapped her arms around herself, shaking. "Who are you then…? Why are you in Megan's house…? And why is there a pile of dust here?"

"Nobody special," Kyle said, kicking his feet awkwardly and looking away from the weeping girl. After a moment of awkward silence, he added. "I mean… I don't know what's going on here, and I have absolutely no idea who this Megan character is. I just fell down a couple of days ago. This ash belongs to…"

As he spoke, Yellow stepped out of Kyle. It was something that Chara did often to Frisk, but it was the first time Frisk had ever really been able to watch it happen. It wasn't so much a separation as a mind projection, at least, as far as she and Chara understood it to work. That didn't really explain why she was able to see Yellow, though. He walked forward and set his hand on Frisk's shoulder. Any other time, she would probably have freaked out about somebody else's mental projection being able to touch her, but she had other things on her mind at the moment.

"We have an enemy," he said simply. "A dangerous enemy far beyond anything I can comprehend right now. The ash," he motioned to the pile, "we were bringing to you. I'm afraid it's all that's left. It happened before we got there, so we have no idea who it was, or what their motivation might be. At the moment, they are clearly hiding somewhere, biding their time before they commit their next unspeakable act." His eyes darkened. "Kyle and I are going to bring whoever it is down."

Frisk nodded. She wasn't sure how much of what they were saying she could trust. At the moment, she didn't really trust anybody, not even herself, but she also didn't really have it in her to put up much of an argument. She was exhausted… absolutely exhausted. A part of her just wanted to sleep and never wake up. It was possible now, wasn't it? Now that she no longer had the time travel ability? That would have been too easy though. She didn't deserve to let the pain end like that. No. She had to keep on going.

Kyle claimed to have just stumbled upon Megan's ashes? That was a bold claim, and not one that she was entirely convinced she believed. There had to be more to the story than that. Maybe, though, there was a chance this could be fixed. She looked up at Kyle hopefully. "Uh… you… you don't happen to have the ability to go back in time do you?"

She was tired, broken, shamed, and terrified of herself. But at least, if he could go back in time, Megan wouldn't have to die. She could invite Megan over to Sans' house like she had done the first time around. Unless… Unless Kyle had saved after Megan's death. The thought was immediately stifled. She couldn't allow herself to think that way. She didn't hear her subconscious screaming anymore. All was silence.

"I wish…" Kyle replied regretfully, looking down at his NIKE shoes awkwardly. "But in that caste, I would have gone back a while ago, rather than carrying that ash all the way here."

Frisk's eyebrows arced at that statement. All the way here? What the heck was that supposed to mean? All the way from where, exactly? Where the heck had he gotten that ash?

Yellow nodded his head in agreement to Kyle's words. "She deserves a proper burial, a lady like her. But I figured you should have the right more than anyone else." Yellow looked at the ground, unable to meet Frisk's eyes.

Something was off here, something was very, very off. "All the way here?" "A lady like her?" "She had the most right?" The words bounced through Frisk's head, as she tried to make sense of them. One thing was becoming more and more clear, that these weren't Megan's ashes. Her subconscious mind seemed to be pushing a suggestion towards her, one that her conscious mind was as of yet unwilling to accept.

There was a moment of silence, in which it became apparent that Frisk wasn't going to ask the question that needed asking. Coughing, Yellow decided to break the silence and address it. "It was her majesty, Toriel the Wise. I can only assume that Kyle was not the only person to have fallen recently, because whoever came before him killed your mother."

Frisk's mind broke at the words she'd feared to hear. A new bout of tears came on, and neither Yellow nor Kyle said anything. What was there to say? "Mom…" Frisk forced out through the tears. "Mom… Mom… Mom…" She repeated the word over and over again. How could she survive without Toriel? What was she supposed to do? Where was she supposed to go? This was unfixable, something that simply couldn't be returned from. There was nobody in the world that she needed more than Toriel, and now she was gone.

Everything had gone so well for five years. What was that, some kind of cruel joke? She remembered how Sans had always felt during each of the runs she had done. That narcissism. Nothing mattered. The world was simply playing a cruel joke, and her misery was the punchline. She'd lost all control.

The world was crumbling around her, and she could no longer go back in time to fix it. She no longer had sufficient determination; she couldn't save anyone. All she could do was cry. Cry until she woke up from this nightmare. Cry until Toriel showed up and proved Yellow a liar. Cry until… until there were no tears left to shed.

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Kyle watched Frisk cry, frowning as he did so. What exactly had he gotten himself into? Nothing had gone as he had planned, absolutely nothing. His attempt to run away had ended rather differently than he had expected. And now, he was sharing his body with some strange cowboy, running from some creepy skeleton, bringing a girl the news that her goat mom had died, and pretending like he had no idea what had happened.

He did though. He had a guess at least, one he was pretty confident would turn out to be accurate. He didn't want to say it out loud though; for fear that it would make matters worse. Names had power, after all. Plus, he didn't want to believe it to be true. Because if he was right, than nothing they did from here on out would even matter.

The person would not stop at killing Toriel. He wouldn't stop until the entire world, Underworld and Surface world, was nothing but a pile of ash. If it was indeed who he feared, nothing could prevent it. So he said nothing, simply watching Frisk weep. If he was right, all would be revealed in time.

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Goat Mom, huh? Chara raised an eyebrow at the news. Of all the monsters underground, Toriel was the only one that she didn't bear any sort of ill will too. Sure, she'd cheered Frisk on when cutting her down during the Genocide Run, but that had served a necessary purpose. It had helped Frisk grow stronger. She gained nothing from her mother dying this way.

She felt that she should probably feel remorse over the loss. But she had stopped feeling anything of the sort a long time ago. The odd thing was, she didn't really feel much of anything about the news. Well… that wasn't quite true. She found herself quite disappointed that she hadn't been able to cut Toriel down herself.

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It was unknown how long the two of them stood there, watching Frisk cry. Neither seemed really sure what to say or do, just… not interrupt. Finally, Frisk broke the silence. "Do you… have a vessel… to bury the dust in?" It was a rather strange thing to ask, as they had claimed they carried her ashes all the way here from… wherever it had happened. But it was lying on the floor in a lump, so…

Kyle remained silently, in what appeared to be a relatively emotionless state. Yellow frowned. "Yeah," he said awkwardly. "But it broke. We ran into a psycho skeleton, you see. And he simply wouldn't listen to a single word we said. This…" he motioned to the havoc state of the house, "happened when he came in here to search for us. He is down right scary when he gets mad."

Frisk frowned and glanced down at Kyle's sneakers once again. So they were the people Sans was chasing. She'd assumed as much. It left a question that needed answering. The other question, how he had managed to get his shoe back, could wait. "What did you do to make him so mad? I mean, killing Toriel was never enough before."

Kyle looked bewildered by the statement, and Frisk instantly realized her mistake. She'd accidentally just stated that Toriel had been killed before. The guy must think she was some kind of lunatic. Yellow had raised an eyebrow as he looked at her with an expression that pretty clearly meant I-can't-believe-you-just-said-that.

Then he shook his head. "You must be completely blind. Think, Red! Are you completely oblivious to the world going on around you?" He shook his head pityingly. "How can you possibly not see it? He has been emotionally connecting to this world. Most of his old DETERMINATION seems to have come back, 'cause all it took to send him reeling was seeing a human holding a pile of ash."

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Chara had stopped pacing, and was now staring out the window of her house with absolute loathing. How she wanted to grab that arrogant soul by the neck and strangle the living daylights out of him. Not that all of the news he was bringing was his own fault, but she needed to take her anger out on somebody, and he was perfect for the part.

Sans being that active was bad news. Very bad news. It would cause unwanted complications if he decided to interfere with her goal. Just as everything that had been happening over the last day or soul had been doing. She was done being the world's punchline though. She would win in the end. She'd bet her soul on it, after all.

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Frisk blinked. The thought that Sans might actually be able to live a happy life, that the narcissistic skeleton might ever actually get some hope had never even crossed her mind. Things weren't really any different than they'd been for most of his life, and though he claimed it had begun with the resets, she was pretty sure that was only the final straw on the camel's back. Her mind began to replay her latest interactions with Sans, attempting to line it up this new information.

"Frisk, do you really need me to spell it out for you?" Yellow asked. He seemed troubled, and she knew why. He was acting like this was so… obvious, and yet she had been completely oblivious. That was a bit unsettling. "He's made friends. He cares about, and worries over, you. He is crushing on your best friend. The evidence that he is building a new life is everywhere. Old Sans never displayed that kind of emotion, or took that kind of initiative. Unless he absolutely had to, the only thing that he ever did was watch.

"We should… probably bury her… Mom." She forced herself to say it. "We need to bury Mom." Then she knelt down and began to scoop the remains of her mother into an empty, but uncracked, vase that Sans had knocked on the floor during his rampage. Kyle instantly knelt down and began to help. Yellow, unable to interact with the world around him any more than Frisk had during the ball, watched.

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Chara scoffed. Even back when she was alive, the concept of burial had never meant much to her. She'd seen a lot before she even entered the monster world, despite being only thirteen years old, and had come to grasp with the knowledge that a corpse wasn't who it had once been. They didn't care what you did with what they had left behind. Dead was dead. Nothing more.

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The house was silent, eerily so. Back when Megan had been alive, there had always been noise. The TV would be running, while the radio in the back room blared, and she talked nonstop about this or that. If Frisk had chosen one word to describe Megan's house back then it would have been loud. The silence simply magnified the terrible emotions running through her. It was too much.

Frisk scrambled to her feet, tears beginning to flow down her face again. She needed to get away from here. Needed to get to the only other person she ever truly felt safe around. It was a terrible lapse in judgment, leaving her mother's ashes on the floor of Megan's ruined home, but she needed to get to Papyrus. She needed to run away from this situation. Hopefully Mom would have understood.

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There is no going back. The world is crumbling apart. Enemies keep popping up. The darkness latches on to Frisk and refuses to let go. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. As always, your fanship means a lot to me. Hope to hear from you.

~ Xanatos Stones

(Thanks again for your reviews, ngrey651 and OwlChaser113. They mean a lot to me.)

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