Author's Note: Don't have much to say except my Spring Break is almost over and I'm looking forward to write more on a normal schedule again. Enjoy!
Chapter 9: Undertones
"H-how are you feeling Frisk?"
I blinked a few times and stretched my fingers out, realizing my hands were balled into tight fists for several minutes now. Alphys had my body 'lie' on an angled metal platform, various colored cords attached to my chest, arms, and temples. My wrists and ankles held down by leather restraints.
I wasn't sure how to feel. Oh ya know, the love of my life probably thinks I'm dead. As if that matters as much since he barely knows who I am now. On top of that, he's probably exhausting all efforts and magic to survive in my own head.
But I reply, "Peachy. Just peachy."
Alphys nervously nodded at my response and continued clacking away on her keyboard behind the desk a couple feet in front of me.
"I'm not too sure if this will work… b-but I guess if it doesn't, you'll at least be more likely to not die a-again." My friend got up from her chair, giving me a weak smile.
As Alphys doubled checked all my monitors and began laying out her medical tools on a tray next to me, I chewed anxiously on the inside of my cheek. I prayed that when I died in my dream last time that Sans and Chara did not continue regardless of the short reset. If anything at least, I hoped that Chara was not aware of my plans with Alphys as this experiment might be setting up to fail from the beginning.
Alphys picked up her syringe, sticking the needle into a small vile of neon yellow liquid and slowly suctioning it through the syringe. I gulped as she flicked the sides of it and turned towards me.
"Are you ready?" Her lips forming a sympathetic line as she glanced down at the floor.
Are you determined?
"I think so…" I swallowed. I tried to keep my mind as blank as possible.
Alphys swabbed my forearm with a disinfectant wipe before inhaling sharply. I looked up at the ceiling, telling myself it was just like a trip to the doctor. I winced at the initial puncture of the needle before I felt a vibrating sensation spread through my arm. The golden liquid in my veins felt like hundreds of small pinpricks or bumble bees flowing and spreading faster and faster; like when a limb falls asleep.
As this sensation made its course throughout my bloodstream and towards my soul, the previous areas began to numb and I started to panic. Alphys dropped the syringe and stumbled backwards, my eyes widening. Without being able to feel it, I realized my body was convulsing hard against my metal 'bed.'
I felt like crying out, but words and sound failed. Maybe I lost my hearing as my vision began to cloud. All I wanted was Sans. All I could think about was Sans. All I could dream about was Sans.
I swear I will get you out, even if I have to die a hundred thousands times.
I fell hard on my knees and palms into a small gathering of wildflowers and tall grass. My breath quivering as I slowly took in the environment I was in.
The Ruins…
But this felt different, there were no golden flowers surrounding me.
"Are… Are you ok?"
My eyebrows raised from surprise. Asriel.
The small goat child walked over towards me reaching down to help me up. I gladly accepted is offer and felt a shy smile creep over my face involuntarily.
"I think I'm all right…" I began to take a step but felt a sharp pain shoot up in my right ankle, causing me to buckle my step. Asriel quickly wrapped his arm around my torso, preventing me from falling again.
"My Mom can help you, she'll know just what to do!" He stated, allowing me to put my weight onto him as we walked out of the clearing.
"Are you sure it's ok…? I'm not—"
"Of course it is. I've seen her help heal a variety of different looking monsters, what you are on the outside won't matter to her." He smiled comfortingly at me, his voice small and a little timid but obviously proud of his Mother's abilities.
"Thank you." I replied. Toriel… Mom…
So it worked. I had more Determination in my body to surpass another human's… In this case: Chara. I was in their memories now. I wonder if they know… I had to look for clues to help me defeat them and save Sans.
"What's your name?"
Without any effort, my lips moved and I answered: "Chara. Yours?"
"Asriel." He beamed and helped lift me up a little more. I looked around, admiring the Ruins once more and walking past all the different monsters from the Ruins, I felt a sense of curiosity and wonder again. Were these my own feelings or Chara's?
We shortly arrived at a cottage and I smiled up at the doorway, a wave of nostalgia came over me.
"Mom!" Asriel called out. He helped me hobble down the hallway. When we reached what I knew to be Toriel's room, Asriel dropped his arm.
"Wait out here ok?" He gave a small smile and quickly turned tail into his Mom's room.
I balanced myself carefully on my left leg, straining to hear the conversation from inside the room. I slowly hopped towards my right and found myself standing in front of the hallway mirror.
My breath hitched as I caught my reflection. It's me. But no, really, it is me.
I gingerly touched my cheeks and mouth. I didn't look like Chara, I looked like me for some reason. I inched closer to the mirror and looked even closer at my features. I cautiously reached my fingers toward the glass, I could feel my soul dropping into the pit of my stomach.
How is this possible? I'm not… I can't be…
As my finger tips met the glass of the mirror, my hand began to penetrate smoothly through. Before I knew it; my arm, shoulder, face, and the rest of my body sucked through the mirror and I tumbled into a spiraling darkness. As I landed on what felt to be upright on some sort of invisible black ground, I started sprinting. In the far-far distance, the only thing I could see was a small pinprick of white light.
Voices flew past my ears and blips of images whooshed past in my peripheral vision.
"Chara! Where are you going!?"
"Don't be scared child, I will always protect you…"
"I'm not sure about this… Won't you get sick?"
"Chocolate always makes me feel better, you can have mine."
"Mom! Asriel keeps making up new rules in our fight!"
"You're such a cry baby sometimes, I swear!"
These scenes and words portrayed Chara as a shy, sweet young child. They always let Asriel win and gladly befriended all monsters that crossed their path.
My mind continued to be puzzled with questions; what happened to make them become the person I knew them to be today…?
The light ahead of me grew larger and brighter with each stride I made. My heart was racing to an unfamiliar beat. These memories I was being filled with felt so personal and filled with love and not LOVE.
Worry stacked and weighted down my steps. How would this help me save Sans? How would this information be enough to stop Chara from stealing away Sans' memories, or worse, his life?
My thoughts turned to Asriel. I closed me eyes, remembering the sweet boy I met and then the young man I encountered briefly when we fought. Chara clearly loved him, regardless of all the teasing and arguments they got into growing up.
But why me? Why is Chara in my head… Why is Chara…
The light blinded me for a moment and I stumbled onto my knees again.
"frisk!"
My eyes shot up to see Sans reaching out in front of me, his back towards me. I looked past him to see Chara holding the knife that was used to just kill me. Sans' gaster blasters erupted beams of magic on either side of him towards Chara, who easily teleported out of the way and shook their pointed finger up in the air.
"Tsk tsk, you need to be quicker than that."
I held my breath and quickly gathered my stream of consciousness and shot a new memory towards Sans. As I did, he turned towards me, completely caught off guard.
The ground fell through below us as we ran towards each other. I reached out my hands towards his and we clasped them together as we free fell, our clothes rippling against this tunneling wind from below.
"frisk? how are you alive?!" Sans squeezed my hands tightly.
"You're about to find out!" I yelled back against the loudness of the surrounding wind.
With a blink of an eye, we were both inside Sans' room back in Snowdin. However we weren't alone.
Sitting on the edge of his bed was… well, us?
The two were at a fair distance apart, unaware of our presence in this space. I looked at Sans standing next to me, his hand still in mine. My soul fluttered with hope, I could see it in his eyes earlier and now this…
But my hopes diminished as he too realized he was still holding my hand, he dropped it and I unwillingly shook off the rejection.
Sans took a few steps towards the 'copies' of us sitting on the bed, their conversation seeming serious. I watched as Sans cleared his throat, unsure if he could get their attention. I giggled through my nose, he didn't know what he was doing.
"Sans, I don't think they can see us." I announced behind him. He finally turned around and looked at me.
"i don't understand. isn't this a memory? shouldn't i be the one sitting on the bed?"
I shrugged. "I guess since I'm actually here with you this time, we get to just observe like ghosts."
"ouch, are you saying you don't see nabstablook?" Sans grinned.
"Okay, bad example but you know what I mean."
Suddenly the Frisk-copy burst out into tears and backed away from the edge of the bed and pressed her back against the wall, curling her legs to her torso. I think I was about 15, I remembered this being soon before I finally broke the barrier.
"spit it out kid, what do you know." The Sans-copy seemed to be fighting back his own anger, he was beginning to realize his suspicions were coming to light.
The Frisk-copy shook her head. "I'm so sorry Sans… If… If I knew that you have been aware this whole time…"
"what frisk, what would be different, huh?"
Sans and I walked a little closer towards the scene. In a way it felt like we intruding on a very personal matter. I imagined that these memories still felt very foreign to Sans.
The Sans-copy inched himself threateningly close to the girl. He sat on his knees and placed his left hand against the wall, looking down at the Frisk-copy. I could see tears forming in her eyes.
My stomach clenched tight. I looked over at Sans, observing his reaction. He watched as his copy began to prepare his blue magic in his left eye and hands.
"why am i like this kiddo?" He glanced nervously at me. His eyes looked accusingly back and fourth from me and young me. I motioned a nod of my head to say keep watching. As if the best part of a movie was coming up.
"I would have never reset the timeline, I would have never allowed Chara to grow stronger… I never meant to hurt you Sans." The Frisk-copy cowered under her friend, afraid of his reaction.
The Sans-copy peered down at the girl with his sunken eye sockets. After several seconds he slumped back and sat on his legs, his head drooped.
I felt my own soul desiring to reach out and comfort his. It floated a few inches from the chest briefly before I ushered it to go back, reminding myself this already happened. Sans however did notice this, his eyes widened as he witnessed my soul's momentary appearance.
"frisk?" He took a step towards me but his actions were interrupted.
"Sans?" The Frisk-copy shakily sat up from against the wall.
"those déjà vu moments… those dreams… they all actually did happen, haven't they?" his voice barely a whisper as he kept his head tucked downward.
The Frisk-copy stopped herself from touching the skeleton.
"…yes." Sans took a step back next to me. Realization setting inside him. I was the cause of all his worry, I was his reason for becoming a lazy paranoid. I was the one that caused responsibility to fall on his shoulders in order to reset the timeline when Chara took control.
I could see that he was having an internal struggle to decide what to do with this information. He was fighting back his anger with what little memories and knowledge he had of who I really was.
"But Sans… I don't want to reset again. It hurts every time I die and have to come back. I don't want to hurt anyone either…" Finally the Frisk-copy summed up the courage to clasp either side of her friend's face.
Slowly, the Sans-copy raised his head to face hers. Tears leaking from his eye sockets, he grinned regardless, trying to show her he was ok.
"…promise bud?" the Frisk-copy nodded firmly and gave him a weak smile back.
Sans next to me remained speechless before shuffling closer to me. I bit my lip and mustered up my own courage to place my arm around his shoulders. He froze at the gesture, staring at the scene of our copies comforting each other. Slowly, he sunk into me and allowed me to wrapped my other arm around him.
We remained like this for a few moments, watching the copies wipe her faces on their sleeves and allowing the silence to sink in. Finally the Sans-copy broke the peace:
"why" he cleared his throat, "why do you reset?"
Before my copy could answer, the floor dropped beneath us was the furniture remained. My hold on Sans became tighter. I knew this exit was not my doing. We quickly fell back into a dark void before collapsing on an invisible ground.
"Frisk is so clingy, isn't she?" Chara's voice pronounced itself, echoing off imaginary walls. We rose to our feet, this time Sans grasped my hand, possessively.
"But you used to know all about that didn't you? These memories I have from you, skeleton, are just full of juicy apathetic emotions Frisk doesn't about."
I turned my head towards Sans. He… He was keeping secrets from me?
Sans refused to look at me and I felt the squeeze of his hand falter. Before I could speak, Chara revealed themselves, walking towards us.
When I saw them, my mind raced back to their memories I witnessed earlier. The emotional bond between them and Asriel beat hard in my chest. I shook off the feeling to allow Determination to set it. I had to get Sans out of here.
"Why are you doing this Chara?" I asked, surprised by the steadiness in my voice.
They smirked. "It's no fun for me to just flat out tell you. I thought you were smarter than this Frisky."
My brain raked for answers. I didn't want to believe they were doing this out of sheer sadistic pleasure. I looked back over at Sans, before I knew it he snapped his fingers and bones appeared out of thin air. As he reached his hand out to deliver his attack, Chara followed up with her own.
I felt my soul turn blue and I was thrown back, out of the way of the incoming knife attacks. I panicked looking around for each location Sans teleported to. Chara's attacks did not let up regardless, as they too could use the power of teleportation here.
I felt myself rise to my legs and began to sprint directly towards the center of the attacks. My heart pounding in my chest, my ears becoming deaf, and I felt the familiar sense of buzzing and numbness course through my body with each step closer.
I ignored Sans' confused and angry look on his face as he attempted to turn my soul blue, but I somehow managed to block him.
"frisk! what the fuck are you doing?!" He yelled out. I made a beeline towards Chara.
They quickly noticed me and grinned before shooting a variety of knives in my direction. I managed to dodge most of them, only receiving a few flesh wounds. I remembered Sans' even lower HP and I looked around for him, praying he's still dodging their attacks.
As I continued to dodge and make my way closer to Chara, I recognized their attacks were becoming less intense. I looked around again, seeing Sans off behind me to the southwest. My eyes widened in fear, Chara was going easy on me because they were preparing a stronger attack on Sans.
When I approached Chara, my mind raced rapidly. I reached out but realized my efforts were futile. The way Chara grinned at me, reality punched the wind out of my lungs. I did exactly what they wanted me to do. Looking back at Sans, his next attack was prepared to protect me instead of himself from Chara's incoming attack.
"No Sans don't!" I screamed, my blood boiling. I looked back at Chara and as I pushed my arms out towards them, the last thing I saw was my soul emerge from out of my chest.
My whole body felt numb and with my eyes still closed, I worried that I died again. Slowly I opened each eye and saw my open hands pushing my bright red soul in front of me. My breathing stopped as I watched a hoard of knives coming straight at me, but as they reached my soul a golden and red swirling force shielded me from each weapon, turning them each into dust before my eyes.
This was my Determination.
"frisk? but how?" Sans spoke from behind me and I watched through the barrier that Chara was beginning to increase their attacks yards away. I somehow managed to teleport here too.
When I turned my head to look over my shoulder at Sans, his own eyes widened with shock. I didn't know what was more surprising about how I looked compared to this newfound power, but I didn't care. All I cared about was getting Sans the hell out of here. Now.
I took a deep breath, allowing the Determination to cultivate deep in my stomach and grow in my chest. Cautiously, I released one of my hands away from my soul, the shield shrunk suddenly in size. I knew I had to do this quickly before Chara noticed the opening, or worse, before Sans could protest my idea.
I shifted my stance, never once looking away from Chara. I swung my free arm around me and stretched it out towards Sans. I sent my power out of my palm and encased him in a red bubble.
"hey what do you think you're doing?" Sans punched the walls of the bubble, finding himself unable to even use his magic now.
I exhaled slowly through my nose and closed that hand into a fist, at the same time the bubble popped and he was gone.
I quickly returned my hand back to my soul and began to concave the shield towards Chara.
I whispered to my soul, "Is he safe? Is he out?"
My soul responded by producing a dark puff of blue out with the pulsing red and gold barrier. I closed my eyes, allowing the blue light to wash over my briefly.
"Well… Then there's just one more person I have to worry about now."
Author's Note: Whelp. I hope that wasn't too confusing to read. It's always hard to write fight scenes without it either being super short or super confusing. I hope I struck somewhat of a balance haha. Please leave feedback!