This chapter was a lot of fun to write.
Toby Fox owns Undertale and all associated characters.
Chara stood in the old skateboard park, loose gravel shifting under her feet. Standing across from her, grinning widely, was Undyne. The fish warrior conjured a spear and tossed it into the air, catching it as it came down.
"You ready for some warm-ups, Chara?" she asked.
The girl took a quick look around. As usual, there were a few people watching from above the bowl the two were standing in. Most of them were Human, but there were a couple of Monsters, and Chara was startled to see Kid waving enthusiastically at her from his vantage point.
She gave a small wave in return, letting a smile creep across her face. Then she turned back to Undyne.
"You're going down this time, Undyne." She stated, her right eye beginning to glow with power as she summoned her knives.
"Fuhuhuhu! That's the spirit! But it'll take more than talk to take me down!" Undyne gestured and Chara's heart was called forth, floating just outside her chest. Immediately after leaving the safety of her body, the soul turned green and Undyne was already conjuring spears to fly at her from all around.
Chara had long ago stopped accepting the defensive spear that Undyne gave to her opponents to help them block her attacks. She wanted her victories to be under her own power, not the result of some silly sense of honour on Undyne's part. Instead, she used her knives to block the incoming attacks, barely managing to keep all of them from impacting her soul.
She couldn't move like this, and the pauses in between Undyne summoning new volleys to hurl at her were fairly brief. She did, however, have enough time to conjure a couple of red orbs above her head and send them flying at Undyne.
The warrior did not try to evade them, instead focussing on continuing her attack on Chara. Both orbs impacted her, and she staggered back, with a grunt.
"So, Alphys told me a couple days ago that you agreed to have her make a robot body for you." As Undyne spoke, Chara's heart turned red again, allowing her to move. She immediately threw herself to the side as the ground lit up beneath her, barely avoiding the spears rising from the ground.
"Yeah, I did." The tips of Chara's knives emitted their long beam of energy and she slashed them at Undyne. The fish warrior managed to evade one, but got hit by the other.
"Hah! Nice hit!" The warrior congratulated, then sent another volley at Chara while simultaneously restricting her movement with strategically placed spears flying up from the ground. Chara was unable to avoid all of them this time, and three spears found their mark.
"I think that's enough warming up, don't you?" Chara called, hoping to steer the conversation away from her future robot form. Undyne sometimes got a little too excited about these kinds of things.
The woman grinned in response.
"You ready for me to beat you already? But we just got started!"
"Don't underestimate me, Undyne!" Chara called back. "I've got some new tricks up my sleeve this time!"
"Ha! We'll see about that."
With that, Undyne's body began to glow, the light growing brighter and brighter until Chara was forced to look away. When it disappeared, she looked back, and Undyne the Undying was standing before her.
Even after sparring with her for over two years now, Chara still was impressed by the warriors second form. She was taller and bulkier, and her armour had transformed with her, a massive heart over her chest. Power poured from her damaged eye, spears of energy materializing and dissipating in the blink of an eye.
The warrior gestured, and Chara once again found herself frozen in place.
"Don't think I'm gonna go easy on you!" Undyne warned.
"Bring it!" Chara replied.
Undyne's spears began firing at her, far faster than they had been in her last form. Simultaneously, several spears rose from the ground to meet her from below. Frozen in place, Chara was unable to avoid the attacks from below, so she would need to take out as many of the spears flying towards her as possible.
The beams from her knives active once more, she swung, her magic destroying all the spears coming at her from the right side. With her other knife, she began blocking the ones coming in too close for her to take out from distance.
She grimaced as the spears from below impacted her; she didn't like how much damage she had taken already. She hadn't even damaged Undyne in her second form yet; anything she'd done to her in the warriors normal form was negated as soon as she transformed.
When the soul effect wore off, she immediately began moving, summoning five of her orbs and throwing them at Undyne. This time, she didn't have to worry about holding back in her power, given how incredibly durable Undyne was in this form. Undyne, for her part, rarely tried to evade Chara's attacks, allowing her armour to absorb most of the damage, and taking the rest on herself.
"Nice hit!" Undyne enthused. She began encircling Chara with her spears, striking her several times before the attack was spent. The girl slipped on the smooth surface below her feet and fell sprawling to the ground.
The warrior before her did not waste the opportunity, and Chara had to quickly roll out of the way of another barrage before lashing out with a beam from her knife. However, a row of spears rose from the ground, blocking the attack before it could impact the warrior.
Chara scowled and rolled, gathering her feet under her, then running to close with Undyne. The warrior grinned before leaping towards her, spear pointed straight at her heart. Chara barely managed to get out the way of the attack.
She retracted the beams from her knives, not wanting to accidentally hit any of the spectators. Undyne's weapon had the longer reach, but Chara had a lot of experience fighting with knives, and now she had two of them. She used one to try to deflect Undyne's spear, while the other made its own strikes on the warrior.
They traded blows for a few moments, before Undyne could turn Chara's heart green again. The warrior moved backwards, putting some distance between herself and Chara once again.
In between the flurries of spears that few at her again, Chara retaliated with her own attacks, and by the time the soul effect wore off and she could move again, both of them had taken significant damage.
Undyne was doing better than her, and by a decent margin, too. But they were both nearing the limit they had agreed upon to prevent either of them accidentally killing the other. Chara decided that now was the best time to play her trump card. She'd been practicing the technique in secret, so she wasn't sure if it would work on Undyne yet or not. Still, there was only one way to find out.
"Alright, Undyne!" She called out. "I hope you're ready, cause I'm gonna finish this, right here and now!" Chara began running towards the other warrior, her eye blazing with power as Undyne summoned a veritable forest of spears in response to her challenge.
Chara opened her left hand, letting the knife dissipate, then closing that hand into a fist. Immediately, Undyne became infused with a dark red, almost maroon energy. She began to move in slow motion, the speed of her attacks massively reduced.
It would not last for long, Chara knew that much. And even at reduced speed, it looked like Undyne was throwing absolutely everything she had at her. Spears rose from the ground, while others flew at her from above and still others began to encircle her. She dodged and weaved, tossing her own orbs at the blue-scaled woman.
There were so many spears. By the time she closed with Undyne, she was just one hit away from her limit. She leapt into the air, just dodging another ring of spears and closed both hands over her knife, raising it and hoping to sink it into the warrior deep enough to end the battle in her favour.
Unfortunately, with so much of her attention divided on being aware of where the spears were, she didn't realize that Undyne was resorting to a more mundane tactic. As her hand closed on the knife handle and she focussed her power into her strike, her effect on Undyne ceased and the warrior's speed returned to normal.
Undyne's fist buried itself into Chara's stomach, knocking all the wind out of her, and breaking her concentration, causing her weapon to vanish in her hands. The force of the warrior's attack sent her flying across the rink and smacking into one of the ramps before rolling down to the ground.
Chara lay there for a few moments, groaning as her body made it very clear that the sudden impact had not at all been appreciated. She heard heavy clanking footsteps, then Undyne's worried voice.
"Hey, you alright there, Chara? I didn't hit you too hard, did I?"
Chara maneuvered herself so that she was resting on her elbows, then spat out blood and let her tongue inspect her split lip. It stung a little, but really wasn't that bad. She sat herself up on her knees and rolled her shoulders, grimacing.
"I'm alright, Undyne." Chara gave the warrior a rueful, bloody smile. "I shoulda seen that one coming."
No, we're not alright! Frisk groaned. This right here is why you need your own body, Chara. I'm the pacifist, remember? Why you guys like beating on each other like this is beyond me!
Frisk, you're whining again.
Undyne slapped Chara on the shoulder, causing an impromptu squeak of pain to emit from the girl, and nearly knocked her back down to the ground. Undyne winced in sympathy and retracted her hand.
"Ah… sorry about that." Then she perked up. "But seriously, what the hell was that? That almost felt like-"
"A soul effect?" Chara cut in, grinning despite the pain. Undyne gave her an incredulous look.
"You can do those? Those things aren't easy to learn, and only a few Monsters even have the capability to try! That's… impressive!"
The warrior leant a hand to Chara, who accepted it gratefully, letting the stronger woman pull her to her feet. As she stood up, she raised a hand into the air to signify she was alright, and there were a few cheers from the watchers above.
"Great work! You nearly had me that time!" Undyne enthused. "Looks like I'm gonna have to watch my back now that you've got a soul effect too! I felt really slow while it was on me; is it a gravity thing like the skele-bros or…?"
Chara shook her head.
"It slows down time for whoever I affect it with. Makes it a lot easier for me to dodge your attacks."
"Fuhuhuhu! Not easy enough, though!"
Chara rubbed at the back of her head, hissing softly as her fingers grazed a bruise.
"I think that's all the sparring we're gonna do today." Undyne declared, her body shimmering as she reverted back into her regular form. "You should probably go home and clean up. I hear you're planning to spend the day with Kid."
Chara's head shot up at that, narrowing her eyes at Undyne's smiling face. Then she sighed. She should have known better than to make that phone call to Kid while Alphys was still in the house.
"Yeah, you're probably right." she replied, trying to keep her voice neutral.
She began walking towards the stairs, trying to avoid limping. She ignored Undyne when she called out;
"You kids have fun!"
Chara rolled her eyes and looked up to see Kid, bouncing with excitement as she came toward him. It was going to be an interesting day.