Toby Fox owns Undertale and all associated characters.
"Umm, I-its not too tight, is it?"
Frisk shook his head carefully, trying not to dislodge the heavy metal device that sat on his head. He was sitting in Alphys' main lab, rather than her underground one. Small black restraints kept his arms and legs pinned to the chair, just in case something went wrong.
"Alright, w-well, it should all be ready to go, then. Are… are you ready, Chara?"
I still can't believe she managed to finish my body in only a few weeks.
Well, she did massively upgrade my phone in like, five seconds when we went to see her the first time in Hotland. Frisk pointed out. Aloud, he said;
"Yeah, she's ready."
"Okay then." The scientist waddled over to a switch on the wall. "Uh, when I pull this, it should provide you a direct pathway to your new body. It's uh, in that room just over there." She pointed a claw at the first doorway out of four going down a short hallway.
"Y-you might want to take some time to get used to your new form, it'll p-probably be a little different than your Human body. Uh, I left you some clothes in there, so you should be able to get dressed before you come out. A-any questions?"
Chara gave Frisk the okay, and Frisk gave Alphys a thumbs up.
"Alright, here we go…"
Alphys reached up and pulled the switch. The metal headpiece Frisk was wearing began vibrating intensely and lights began flashing brightly from it. The vibration became more and more intense, and Chara allowed herself to be pulled free from her brother's body.
It was different than when The Defiler had ripped her from Frisk. This time, instead of being pulled out into the world, she was being drawn through a machine designed for this purpose. She couldn't really make sense of anything, as if she was existing in a limbo state.
Very quickly, however, she felt a shudder ripple through her being, and suddenly, she was in a body again.
She remembered when she entered Frisk's body when he first fell into the Underground. She had retreated into the boy's subconscious for the first while, getting re-acclimated to having a physical form for the first time in hundreds of years.
This was not so different. Before she opened her eyes, she focussed on figuring out the differences. There was no heartbeat for one, something she wouldn't have even thought about while she had one, but it was odd how profound the loss seemed when she no longer had it. In it's place, she could feel currents of energy flowing through her.
Some of the energy was magical, and she guessed that the rest was electrical. Which brought her to the next sensation, which was slightly more difficult to describe. She knew that with the amount of metal used in a robot body, their forms had more physical matter than most monsters. Even so, the feeling of loss of physicality was one that would take some time getting used to.
It was almost enough to keep her attention away from the other strange feeling of loss, the feeling of no longer having Frisk inside her head. It had been so long since that last happened, she had forgotten how empty it felt without him.
Finally, she opened her eyes, taking stock of the room around her. She was sitting on a short bench, and across the room there was a full length mirror, with some clothes lying next to it. She stood up carefully, quickly realizing she was slightly taller than Frisk was. She'd have to get used to that moderate height difference.
She walked over to the mirror, only stumbling once before reaching it, then gazed into the glass, taking stock of her new body.
Red eyes peered out in the middle of a heart-shaped face. Like Mettaton, her bangs swept forwards, all but covering one eye. However, the rest of her hair was longer, falling about her shoulders. Experimentally, she tangled a finger in her hair. The jet-black strands were very much like the real thing, though they felt tougher, and perhaps a bit coarser.
Three exposed metal bars lined the left side of her jaw, mostly at her own insistence. She wanted it advertised that she was a robot, and she had no desire to be mistaken for Human.
Her eyes travelled down. Below her neck, her whole body was polished, jet-black metal, unlike her face which was a pale white. Once again, it was her own insistence, Alphys could have created a near-perfect android body for her, but that wasn't what she wanted.
She flexed her fingers and shook her long legs, twisting to catch different angles of herself in the mirror. Her gaze was drawn to the power core placed where her belly button would have been. Unlike Mettaton's which was heart-shaped, hers was shaped like the head of a golden flower, with a deep red gel-like substance visible within it.
There weren't a lot of extra features attached; Toriel had vetoed most of the ones she had actually wanted, and the rest hadn't been very interesting to her. She knew there was a speaker built into her chest, and she was pretty sure she had cell phone capabilities, though she wasn't sure how to access them.
Well, at least I don't have to worry about being called a boy again. Chara smirked, looking at the petite mounds adorning her chest.
And I don't have to hear you complaining about it anymore. Win-win!
It took Chara a second to process Frisk's voice, and when she did, she let out an undignified squeal, immediately turning around.
Frisk?! What are you still doing here!?
She could hear the boy laughing, though strangely, she still didn't feel his presence, and could call up no image of him.
Aw, man, I wish I could see your face. I bet it's priceless right now. Don't worry, I can't see anything, I'm still outside.
What? But, how?
I dunno. I didn't know we could still talk to each other until you spoke up. I guess we're still linked somehow.
Chara groaned.
Just when I thought I was free. She said wryly.
Hey, come on now, you know you miss me when I'm gone.
You, yes. Your voice, not so much.
There was a short chuckle, then Frisk asked;
So, how's it going over there? New body treating you well?
It's a little weird, but I'll get used to it. She looked over to the clothes lying nearby. I'll be out in a minute, just getting dressed.
Cool. I'll let the others know.
Chara took a little longer to dress herself than she would have liked, still getting used to her proportions and how her body felt. She had wondered if there would be any loss of sensation now that she was mostly made of metal. But she could still feel the soft texture of the green shirt and the tougher feel of the cargo pants that had been left for her. She decided it was probably the magic that helped power her body that allowed for this. Alphys had even mentioned that she would still be able to taste food, though she should really only eat Monster food from now on.
At last, she was fully dressed, and she took one last glance at herself in the mirror before taking a deep breath and walking out of the room.
She entered the brightly lit lab. Frisk was just getting out of his chair, Alphys pulling the last of the restraints off his leg. The boy waved at her with a wide grin on his face.
"Good to see you, sis."
Chara couldn't help but grin.
"Good to be seen." She paused in surprise at her voice. It was definitely hers, and it sounded similar to what it had when she was in Frisk's body, but there was a slightly synthetic tone to it now. Another thing to get used to.
Frisk barked a laugh at her retort, and Alphys scuttled over, holding some kind of device that looked like a cross between a TV remote and a Ipad.
"H-hold still."
She waved it about Chara, and the device made a few quiet beeping sounds. Alphys stared at the device for a moment before letting out a relieved grin.
"It looks like… like it worked! How do you feel?"
Chara rolled her shoulders wiggled her fingers.
"It's kind of weird… but I'll get used to it." she declared. "I think I like it."
Alphys sighed in relief.
"Th-that's good. Um, now I just want to go over a couple of things…"
Chara gave a nod to indicate she was listening and the nervous reptile continued.
"Uhm, most of your power comes from your battery. It's got enough of a charge for eighteen hours. Uh… when you're powered down, though, it'll recharge. Every hour you spend powered down will recharge three hours of your battery life.
B-but! That's only the main power source. Like we discussed earlier, you've got a lot of magic sustaining you, like most Monsters. S-so, you could eat Monster food, and get recharged a bit with that, since that'll sustain your magic. You should theoretically be able to use your own magic to power your body too, but that puts a lot of strain on your soul, and you'd have to power down for longer afterwards to recover.
"Uhm… any questions?"
Chara thought for a moment, then shook her head.
"No, I don't think so. Not yet anyway."
Frisk smiled.
"Alright, good. Mom's been texting me every other minute asking if everyone can come in yet. I was getting tired of saying we were waiting on you."
Chara turned to face the door on the other end of the room, and was not surprised to see Papyrus's skull peeking through the glass window set in it.
Mere seconds later, the door burst open and Papyrus ran through, swiftly followed by Toriel and Asgore. Sans sauntered slowly out behind them, leaning against the doorframe and watching the proceedings.
"Wowie! Chara, you look great! I, the great Papyrus, welcome you back with open arms!"
Chara smirked as the skeleton raised his arms, only to be overtaken by her parents who swooped in for the kill. Asgore grabbed her first, actually lifting the girl into the air, an expression of sheer delight on his face.
"Asgore!" Toriel chided, though she was laughing at the same time.
"No, pressure, Asgore." Sans called from his position by the doorway. "But it looks like there's a line."
"There's no need to rush, you guys." Frisk called. "Chara's not going anywhere, no need to start up an arms race!"
"Frisk, why?" Both Chara and Papyrus said in unison, causing a ripple of laughter to course around the room. Asgore finally let his daughter down, allowing the others to crowd around her.
She felt a bit cramped with everyone so close to her, but given the circumstances, she was willing to put up with it for now. She grinned again. She couldn't wait to show off her new form to Kid. He wasn't going to know what hit him.