Huge thanks to my friend Petalthorn for her help with this, and the following chapters. If you guys are looking for more Undertale stories, the I highly suggest checking out her story: Corrupted File on Deviantart. It's very well written, and honestly needs more attention.

Toby Fox owns Undertale and all associated characters. However, The Defiler is mine.

Chara let out a groan. She opened bleary eyes to stare at the pavement her face was pressed against, distantly noting the specks of red spattered about it. Her body ached, and she could already feel bruises forming on her shoulders and back.

She began pushing herself upright on her forearms, taking in a shaky breath as she did so. As she clambered to her feet, using the blue car as support, she was struck by the feeling that something was… wrong.

She let out a hiss of pain as her fingers brushed against her torn right arm. She stared at the gash in her forearm for a moment. This was the second time this week that arm had been damaged. She really needed to keep Frisk out of-

Frisk. Her blood immediately turned to ice as she identified the source of the feeling of wrongness. For the first time for as long as she could remember, she couldn't feel Frisk's presence in her head.

F… Frisk?

She delved into the depths of her mind, searching for any trace of the boy.

Frisk? Come out! This isn't funny!

Whenever one of them was dominant, the other could sink back into the subconscious reaches of their mind and hide away there. Chara knew that, but still, even if Frisk was all the way down there, there should be some indication of his presence. But she found… nothing.

Frisk!

But nobody came.

An amused laugh suddenly washed over her, and Chara whipped her head around to gaze at The Defiler, floating once again, but this time, only a few feet into the air. Her face contorted with fury at the sight of him, even as the calculating part of her mind noted that she no longer seemed drawn to the dark being.

"I must admit, I'm impressed." The gold-masked man chuckled. "Not even the last of the Rune Masters could perform a Soul Lock that I could not penetrate."

"You!" Chara yelled. "What did you do to Frisk!?"

The Defiler cocked his head.

"I assume you are speaking of the other pathetic soul that hid you from me?" The orange glow of his eyes intensified. "He stopped me from taking you. But an act like that does not come without consequences."

Chara began to tremble. This… this thing. It had taken away what was left of her brother. And now Frisk was gone too. She felt something building in her chest, the same energy that had begun to awaken when Toriel had been attacked. It had seemingly disappeared when the danger was over, but now it was returning, and far stronger than before.

There was a shuffling sound, and then Sans was behind her, a hand on each of her shoulders.

"Talk to me, kid."

Chara kept her gaze trained on her enemy, who was merely watching the proceedings.

"He did something… He tried to rip me away but, Frisk wouldn't let him. And now I can't… I can't feel him anymore."

She choked on the last words, anger and grief warring within her for dominance, even as the pressure within her continued to build. It was unfamiliar, and at the same time…

The Defiler floated back down to ground level, still facing Chara and Sans behind her. He began walking towards them.

"It is of no consequence. If I cannot tear you from your body, I will destroy it. You will have nowhere left to go."

She wouldn't do it. She wouldn't let him win. Frisk had saved her, and she wasn't going to let his sacrifice go to waste. Suddenly, she knew what she needed to do.

Humans can't use magic anymore. But… I'm not Human, am I?

Even as she thought this, her right eye exploded with power, flames of red energy flickering from it, mirroring Sans's own glow behind her. She opened her palms, and, when she closed them into fists again, each hand held a knife made of the same energy.

The sudden display of power made The Defiler stop his approach. Chara raised one of the knives and pointed it straight at him.

"You." Her voice had changed, it sounded as though two people were speaking at once, and it vibrated with power.

"I know what you are. You're what I used to be. Even knowing that, Frisk would have tried to spare you. Tried to understand you, like he did me." Her voice trembled for a moment.

"But I know better. You won't stop, will you? Even if I were to give you what you want, you would still destroy everything."

The Defiler crossed his arms in front of him, and Chara could have sworn he was raising an amused eyebrow behind that mask.

"I'm not going to let you cause any more damage than you already have. You want my power?" Three orbs of red energy formed above her head, each the size of a baseball. "You're not going to get it without a fight!"

She launched the orbs with a thought, each of them homing in on The Defiler. With incredible speed, he uncrossed his arms and plucked his staff out of the air, deflecting two of the balls of energy before they impacted him. The third however, struck home and made a sizzling sound as it burned through his robes, before dissipating.

"It seems your fragment may be stronger than I had believed!" The Defiler gloated, summoning his own magic to crackle around him. "But you are not strong enough to defeat me!" He gestured and two beams of energy homed in on her position.

Before they could strike however, they were intercepted by beams of pure white, and Chara looked up in disbelief to see two Gaster Blasters over her head, countering The Defiler's attack. The beams clashed, then both spent themselves out, the magic fading away in the air. Chara quickly scanned the battlefield, and saw the other Monsters picking themselves up from the ground. She grinned at The Defiler.

"Maybe not. But I don't need to be. I have allies. You. Have. Nothing!"

The tips of her knives began to glow stronger, and she darted to the side, away from Sans, and swung her weapons at her enemy. If they were normal knives, they would not have been anywhere near close enough to hit The Defiler.

Fortunately, these were anything but normal knives.

The glow at the tip of each weapon burst into a long, thin beam of energy, effectively extending her reach by incredible proportions. Each beam impacted The Defiler, and, though she was unable to see his soul, or how much damage he had taken, she knew she had hurt him. This battle was far from over.

Chara ducked behind a single wall that was all that was left of some poor Monster's house. The top of the wall exploded just above her head, causing debris to fall all around her. She summoned four more of her orbs and took a quick peek out at the battlefield before firing them out at The Defiler. Undyne was currently attacking The Defiler head-on, the other Monsters supporting her assault. The whole block was all but decimated with the sheer amount of power being thrown around. There would need to be a lot of repairs done if they made it through this.

The Defiler had increased the intensity of his assault after Chara's magic had revealed itself. It was becoming more and more difficult to evade his attacks while still keeping up her own.

She wasn't sure how long they had been fighting, but she hoped that her newfound power would continue to last. Fortunately, she was not alone, but her allies were beginning to tire as well.

She flinched as another burst of power washed over the area, grateful for the cover she had, moderate though it was. As it subsided, she prepared to leap out and renew her attack on their enemy, but paused at the sudden sound of gunfire.

Wait, gunfire?

"Frisk, bro! Are you alright?"

Chara looked up in surprise. She hadn't even heard the large bunny Monster approaching, which was a feat in and of itself, given he was wearing his full battle-armour.

"01? What are you doing here?"

The guard-turned-police-officer paused for a moment, though if he was thrown off by Chara's eyes or voice, he didn't say anything.

"When me and some of the boys saw the explosions, we like, went to make sure everyone was evacuated from this area so no-one got hurt. But we were, like, totally trapped once we got onto this street. Then, we saw Miss Undyne fighting that creepy black dude, so like, we decided to help." He adjusted his grip on his sword.

Chara peeked over the wall, and sure enough, she saw several Humans taking cover in one of the buildings. They were wearing black riot gear, and had the letters S.W.A.T. in white on their backs. Most of them were armed with pistols, but a few had rifles, and they were ducking in and out of cover, taking potshots at the godlike being.

Humans and Monsters fighting together to take down a common enemy. If someone had even suggested the possibility of this happening to her, she would have laughed in their face. And yet, here they were.

"Stay down, alright? I gotta coordinate the men while Miss Undyne's kicking ass. Don't worry, little dude, we'll teach this creepy guy who the law is in this town!"

The large bunny Monster glanced quickly out from the cover, then bolted back to where the Humans were, summoning a volley of magical bolts to fire at The Defiler to cover himself. Chara wondered vaguely if he might be more competent than she had previously believed.

But now was not the time for that. She had no intention of staying down here. Anyway, it would take everything they had to bring The Defiler down. With that in mind, she vaulted out from behind the wall, and began weaving her knives in an intricate pattern, focussing on slashing her beams of energy into The Defiler, and not hitting anyone else in her way. Fortunately, none of the other Monsters were close enough to the being to get in the way of her attack.

Undyne had fallen back to the Humans. Chara could see her gesturing wildly while speaking to 01. Since she had pulled back, Asgore, Papyrus and Sans had taken up the brunt of the assault. In between dodging The Defiler's attacks, Chara was able to take note of how the Skeleton brothers worked together.

Sans leapt and dodged about the field of combat, shielded by walls of bones that grew and retracted from the ground as quickly as the short skeleton moved. Papyrus was focussing almost completely on defence, while Sans unleashed his own devastating attacks on The Defiler.

Chara noted that no matter where Sans dodged to, Papyrus's bone walls not only protected his brother, but were also designed so that they never blocked the line of sight of their allies towards The Defiler.

Asgore, it seemed, had given up trying to keep close to their enemy, and was standing near Papyrus, alternately sending waves of fire towards the gold-masked being and deflecting the attacks sent towards Papyrus. Fortunately, this gave Chara a lot of room to use her own abilities.

As another barrage of gunfire erupted from the building the police forces were in, The Defiler made a fist with one hand. A ball of black energy appeared before him, smaller than most of the blasts he'd been throwing at them, and black lightning crackled from it. He gestured, and it went flying towards the Humans, intercepting and destroying several of the bullets in its way.

But before it could impact, Toriel was there. Chara's mother threw up both hands and called a wall of flame into existence, the flames burning bright white. The Defiler's attack impacted the wall, exploding the moment it did so. The force behind the explosion was so great that cracks appeared in the pavement below it. Toriel's wall was obliterated, and Toriel herself was pushed backwards from the force but she did not fall.

She was panting heavily, but seemed otherwise unharmed. Flames licked at her fingertips and she stood proud in defence of her Human allies.

Chara wasn't sure how, but she could tell that The Defiler was getting annoyed. She smiled at that thought. It was a good thing too, she was getting tired of dodging.

Even as she thought that, something wrapped around each of her legs and squeezed, effectively immobilizing her. She looked down, wide-eyed and saw two tendrils of The Defiler's energy clutching at her legs, each of them anchored in the ground below her.

She felt something pulsing in her soul and looked up in time to see four beams of energy in a diamond pattern firing towards her from the tip of The Defiler's staff.

Chara was unable to pull free from the grip of the magic that held her. In desperation, she began hacking at the tendrils with her knives, but there was no way she would be able to get out of the way in time.

She braced for impact, but it never came. Before the beams could hit her, two of them were deflected by magical energy firing from above. Alphys swooped down in front of her, raising her right hand and forming a shimmering shield of energy before her. The remaining two beams slammed into the shield, one of them dissipating on contact while the other shattered the shield and hit Alphys square in the chest.

Alphys stumbled on the impact, and a few high-pitched beeping sounds began to sound from her suit, but she took off regardless, Chara having finally managed to free herself from The Defiler's magic. The small lizard peppered their enemy with more bursts and blasts of magic, trying to keep his attention away from Chara.

But The Defiler had had enough.

Alphys's flight was beginning to slow, and the dark being fired another volley of blasts at her, each travelling far faster than anything he had thrown at them thus far.

Several of the blasts smashed into Alphys, sending the airborne lizard crashing to the ground, landing in a heap against a semi-collapsed wall. Sparks flew from the exo-suit, and Chara could see some of the metal bent out of shape from the impact of the attack.

But The Defiler was not done yet. Energy gathered at the tip of his staff, and he launched another blast at the helpless lizard.

"Alphys!"

Undyne moved with incredible speed, somehow managing to get in front of Alphys before the magic impacted her. She screamed at the contact, and the force from the attack caused what was left of the wall to collapse in on itself, obscuring the two from sight.

Chara let out a cry, and unleashed the beams of energy from her knives at The Defiler, but he ignored her attack, instead focussing on Toriel. Black lightning crackled at his fingertips and he unleashed the power at Chara's mother.

Before it could reach it's target however, the attack was intercepted by a wall of bones. The lightning jumped between each bone, shattering them all, but expending itself before it hit Toriel.

The Defiler let out an unamused grunt, and several tendrils of energy lashed out, one wrapping itself around Sans' foot and flinging him into the air like a rag doll. Seeing this, Papyrus immediately chased after his brother, his arms stretched out as if to catch him. He did not see the black bolt that hit him in the back, throwing him out of Chara's vision.

Asgore, Chara and Toriel were throwing everything they had at The Defiler, but he deflected most of their attacks. Those that got through had little outward effect on the dark being.

"No more! I have humored you long enough. This ends now!"

As The Defiler spoke, he brought his staff down to impact on the ground. Instantly, the ground underneath Asgore and Toriel began to liquify, and they were sucked into the dark goo before Chara even had a chance to cry out.

With his free hand, The Defiler conjured a ball of flame far larger than anything he had used up to this point and hurled it at the building that the police force had taken refuge in. Under the onslaught of power, the building crumbled in on itself in a shower of dust and debris.

Chara's breathing was ragged. She couldn't believe it. Just like that, only she was left facing The Defiler. He was too strong for her to defeat. Frisk would find a way, there had to be some other way to beat him. She just had to stall him until she could figure it out. She glared out from under her bangs at the man who now faced her.

"Do you understand? You never had a chance. This was always going to end this way."

Chara closed her eyes and let out a shaky breath. She released her fists, and the knives faded out of existence. When she opened her eyes again, her right was no longer glowing. She looked towards the enemy.

"Why?" She asked, her voice hollow. "Why me?"

The Defiler gave a cold laugh.

"I was once infinite. But I was betrayed by short-sighted fools who did not understand power. Their actions shattered me across all of reality. All that exists, and all that could ever exist." He took a step forward.

"That is all you are. A fragment of my soul, nothing more. Everything you are, everything you have, came from me."

"That's not true!" Chara protested weakly. "I was born, I had parents! I… I..."

"Your protests ring hollow, even to your own ears, don't they?" Another step. "Your body is of no consequence, it is your soul that is mine. I will wait no longer. Surrender to me, or I will allow your consciousness to remain long enough to watch me purge this world."

Frisk? I don't know if you're there, or if you can hear me, but I have an idea. I've only got one shot at it, though. If I don't make it… well, I guess we won't really have to worry about it for long.

Even though there was no response, Chara felt a little better speaking to Frisk. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and left Frisk's body.

The instant she did so, she once again felt the pull of The Defiler's call. She began to float towards him, vaguely aware of Frisk's body collapsing to the ground like a puppet with it's strings cut. But, for the first time, she could see The Defiler's soul.

It was massive. And… broken. She could see the massive cracks running through it. Despite all of The Defiler's power, he was but a shadow of what he once was.

As she was drawn towards him, she began to see the parts of his soul where she would fit, the cracks and crevices within him that she would fill. She was also able to see how much damage they had done to him, and she winced at the discovery. They had thrown everything they had at him, and though the damage was significant, he could probably go through that same fight again before the damage he had taken became life-threatening.

She steeled herself. This had to work. If it didn't, there would be nothing left that could stop The Defiler.

The gold-masked man stretched out a hand, and Chara was pulled violently forward, beginning to merge with his soul. The second she began to do so, the sheer malice and hatred emanating from the soul washed over her, threatening to destroy all traces of her consciousness.

But she held firm. She had to, if only just for a little longer. She felt herself being pulled apart, her soul seeping into the cracks of The Defiler's soul. She was so close to being completely absorbed, but she wouldn't let herself fall apart just yet.

Almost… Almost… now!

With every ounce of strength she had, she tore herself free from The Defiler's soul. He had let her into his most vulnerable parts, and she fully intended to make him pay for that. She began shredding at his soul from the inside, clawing her way free from his shocked grasp.

She pulled herself free, escaping the confines of his soul, elation filling her. It had worked! She'd gotten away with it! Her elation was quickly crushed however, as The Defiler retaliated, and she felt herself being pulled back into him, this time with far more force than the last. Though she struggled against it with all of her might, it was to no avail, and his grasp only tightened on her.

Well, if she couldn't escape, she intended to do as much damage to him as she possibly could. She turned her attention back to the soul that loomed over her, intending to make one final, desperate strike on him.

Before she could, another force suddenly made itself known. Something else plucked her from The Defiler's grasp and sent her careening back through the air to collide with Frisk's body, entering it once again with ease.

She opened her eyes and pushed herself up on her hands and knees to gaze over to where The Defiler stood, ignoring the pain that enveloped her body. She could hear screaming, and she quickly realized it was coming from The Defiler.

From behind him, arms wrapped around his chest in a tight embrace, was another figure dressed in black robes. This one also appeared to be wearing a mask… or was it a skull? It was difficult to tell. There were two cracks around his eyes, the one on the left travelling up towards his forehead, and the one on the right travelling down and stopping just shy of his jaw. Where his hands were locked in front of The Defiler's chest, Chara could see that each palm had a perfectly round hole in the middle of it.

The Defiler thrashed in the figure's grip, but appeared unable to break free from him. The other figure looked towards Chara and spoke. She could not understand his words, but somehow, she knew what he said.

"Child, you have redeemed yourself." The being looked down at the man in his grasp. "And now, so have I."

There was a bright flash, and then everything went black.

Author's note: Well, SweetJumpsBrah, now you and anyone else wondering how The Defiler could possibly be beaten have your answer. But how fare our heroes? And is The Defiler truly defeated? Well, next chapter's out Monday, maybe it'll shed some light on those, and any other questions you may have.