"NO!" Her shriek bounced against the chamber walls and echoed into the void beyond. Her hands, once clasped over the furry white dorsals of the King's, suddenly felt dry as a thin, white powder coated her fingers. It was thick enough that it might have reminded her of snow, its touch was cold and heavy, but it didn't melt like the frozen tears of the sky might have. It crumbled through between cracks of her fingers and spilled onto the floor beneath, joining its brothers to create a single, thick mound of what Monika knew was dust. The remnants of its touch was slightly familiar to her. She had tasted it at least twice before; once against another who fought to claim her SOUL, and once against a similar, kinder, Goat Monster. It clung to her fingers like the final ashen remains of volcanic eruption, but the way it made her fingers stick together reminded her of something much more intimate.
She breathed in as her shriek ended and the coppery taste that filled her lips and stuck to the edges of her tongue was similarly impertinent, it took her back to a time that she had hoped to move on from. A time when she had tasted blood in the air and smiled. There was no pleased grin that crossed her lips this time. No self-congratulatory pat on the back for a job well done, no questioning of what was to come next and how she was to go about revealing herself to her object of desire. No, this time there was none of that. Instead, something else came over her. Hot and red, like flashing sirens or screaming fire engines racing towards a blaze, the young woman suddenly felt a very girlish kind of anger come over her. She very suddenly wanted to lash out, but lash at what? The King's assassin had not yet revealed himself, and somehow the impotency of her rage only made the fires of it stronger. She had been so close. Monika had reached out and touched his hand, she had held him in her palm and she had led him to a way out of a situation he thought inevitable. She had saved him, she had averted not only the fate of this game- if truly it were- but the fate of herself, the fate of him!
In so many ways, the Monster King, the Club President, the murderers without redeem, those who had done what they imagined was for the best only to lose everything they held closest. In Asgore, Monika had seen herself. She had reached out to him to be better because she had wanted so very much to be better, and because of that flower, the weed that had stolen his life, he would never have the chance to be better, would he? Soon, she knew, soon the flower would come for her, he would come to take her chance to be better, to be the worst person who changed, to be the woman her lover could be proud to see. Monika staggered to her feet as in Asgore's former place appeared a single white Soul. Small and shaped like a heart inverted, it hovered there for a moment before it was suddenly surrounded by the assassin's bullets. A flicker of hate surged in her mind, but it carried a flash of memory with it- Alphys's warning, the fact that Monika needed Asgore's SOUL to cross the barrier- but also something else.
A Monster that absorbs a Human SOUL becomes strong enough to be considered godlike. Monika's eyes widened as hot pink flames burnt against her skin. What would happen, then, if a Human...
Absorbed a Monster Soul?
PASSION ignited the so-called "Friendliness Pellets" that quickly shot towards Monika's hand and arm as her fingers curled around the glimmering white Soul. For some, the bonds that held their magic together were quickly and entirely severed, destroying the construct wholly and completely. For others, the magic was absorbed and transformed into reflections of Flowey's technique: Monika had her own Friendliness Pellets now. She yanked back on the SOUL and pulled it towards herself as Flowey revealed himself. He let out a growl of anger, his face tensing with the emotion before slowly starting to relax once more. That should have been her fir$t w rning, but Monika was incapable of paying any attention to the soulless face of the Flower as she slammed Asgore's Soul into her SOUL.
The energy was blinding. PASSION flared around her body for a moment before suddenly condensing itself into a single point just over her chest- her SOUL. The Heart-Shaped-Object set alight with an aura of pure rosy fire, almost like it was burning to ashes. Slammed against the very essence of her being, the Monster Soul seemed to compress and flatten as if filled with air. Yet it did not disintegrate like Asgore's body had, nor did it shatter like glass as Player had said her's might, instead, something new began to happen. It merged. Turning a vibrant, garnet pink, the Soul fused with the SOUL and became one, and Monika's body responded in kind. It wasn't as though the girl grew horns or became some fusion of Man and Monster, but there were changes.
Monika felt herself stand taller first, it was a strange experience, but not one she was entirely new to. Somewhere far in her fabricated past, she remembered wearing high heels once, perhaps at a sophomore prom, with a boy she now recognized as having no face. Back then it was a struggle to even rise to her feet, but now, partly thanks to the rage swirling in her gut and partly thanks to the fact that she wasn't balancing on heels, Monika had never felt more capable. She felt stronger too, and as her muscles tensed, as she drew the Spear she had absorbed from Undyne, Monika glanced down and found that though her jacket had not torn, she now filled it out slightly more than she had before. It wasn't by much- she had always been an athletic girl- but it was enough that the Club President found it slightly off-putting. And as she looked down, Monika became aware of her SOUL. No longer did it shine pink alone. Now it shimmered with thin strips of white that came together to form an inverted Heart within her own SOUL.
Then, she felt it. It wasn't merely a strength of body. It felt as though Monika had been thirsty all her life and had only now found a spring. Her eyes turned back to Flowey as her PASSION ignited around her, though it didn't come merely as an aura of fire this time. Now it erupted like the burning blaze of a forest fire, its tendrils spread around her like waves and suddenly she felt as though it was her dimming the light of the Barrier. Fireballs emerged from the inferno that surrounded her, and her Spear grew another two prongs as it transformed alongside her, becoming a trident. Monika had not merely taken Asgore's physical attributes onto herself, but she could feel the true totality, the depths of the Monster King's true power now at her fingertips. It brought her no joy. She would have traded all of it to have Asgore standing beside her.
But maybe, in his final moments, he had given her the chance that Flowey had taken from him. "You..." Monika breathed, her voice sounded the same as always... and not her own all at once. It was harsher than she had ever spoken to anyone, save perhaps for Sayori. Every word felt not like the poetry of a girl who had spent her life studying the art, but the venom of a snake that had spent its life in darkness. "I am going..." The words she wanted to say no longer felt right in her mouth. The words she wanted to scream seemed to be a complete rejection of everything she had told Asgore mere moments before. Part of her wanted to lower her weapon. Part of her wanted to look the Flower in the eye with the same expression she had looked into Asgore's with and ask him why he was doing what he was doing? But she knew already. He'd told her well before this why he acted the way he did, and unlike Asgore it wasn't an ideology she could fathom. Even at her lowest. Even so, was it really right to say them? Was it hypocritical? Was she wrong for feeling so much hate? The question lingered in her mind for only a second before she lowered herself into a stance more familiar to Asgore than it was to her. 'Asgore.' His name was all the reminder she needed.
"I'm going to kill you."
But the Flower smiled. Indeed, he grinned. Like his petals were lips themselves, they turned up with his growing grin that seemed to disregard the confines of his face. "Well..." His voice was as grating as she remembered. "I guess you HAVE learned a thing or two about this world." His grin didn't make sense to her at first, but as the SOULs lined up around his body, it dawned on her why exactly he was smiling as much as he was. "After all.." His grin turned utterly demonic. "In this world..."
"I. T. S. K. I. L. L. O. R. B. E. K. I. L. L. E. D."
Monika's world we
Claimer: I own everything you see! =] =] =] =] =] =]
Long ago, two races ruled over the Earth. Humans and Monsters.
One day, they all disappeared without a trace.
nt black! It went black. The very world itself vanished from her sight, and if it weren't for the light of her SOUL, the light of her Trident, and the harsh, unnatural glow of the File Menu as Player looked into it, Monika would have been completely shrouded in pitch darkness. "Player..." Her voice sounded much more frail now, and with growing terror she realized that it didn't bounce off of anything. Flowey had not simply turned out the lights with the Six SOULs, he had shifted her place in reality. And if that was possible, then what else could he do?
With one SOUL, a Monster was powerful enough to spark enough fear in humans to start a war and seal their race underground. Monika could only fathom what could be done with Six... and the more she fathomed, the more her heart started to feel heavy in her chest. Still, she looked towards her darling for support and found it in his presence. With him here, it didn't feel nearly as terrifying. "I can't say anything for sure..." Player began, swallowing hard as he did. "And I'm terrified about giving anything away in case he can hear me now... But just keep your hope up. I know how to win."
"I'm sure you do."
The voice came from everywhere. Clear and loud, it rang out but still didn't echo, it boomed only once. Monika drew her trident closer to her chest and looked around, wildly trying to pinpoint the direction of the voice, but finding her heart sinking deeper with every head turn. Player on the other hand froze, and when Monika's eyes errantly flicked back to him and noticed, it dawned on her why. "Honey..." Player muttered. "I think he knows." And I did, now that I FINALLY had the SOULs all to myself, I could see him. I just thought she was crazy, but all this time he was standing right there and I never even knew. Well, I'll have to make up for lost time then...
A red crack exploded in front of their eyes, both of them jolted and turned to stare at it with uncomprehending gazes. It was like reality was made from glass and someone had suddenly taken a hammer to it. Another strike came and I got closer. Still, they couldn't draw their STUPID faces away from me, not that it mattered. Even if they could, what would they do? I pulled back and with a final swing, not that I needed it, I broke through. My face was all they could see but the pair didn't react the way he expected. Monika, though still scared out of her mind ignited her aura once more, this time summoning what must have been hundreds of fireballs to fill the air around them. Player tensed up and tightened his fingers around the File Menu before opening a keyboard on its face.
Before he could type even one number, I lunged towards him. No no, wait, that was the old me. No, this time I simply
"Holy shit!" Player's swearing caused Monika to snap her attention towards him. He seemed fine, which sent a wave of relief through her chest. If anything happened to him now, she wasn't sure what she would do. But the relief suddenly turned to nausea as she noticed what had made him swear- the File Menu he was never far from... was gone. Above them, Flowey chuckled.
"Howdy! I'm Flowey! Flowey the Flower!" My voice mocked, I couldn't help it. I was elated. I couldn't remember the last time I had this kind of power. I knew that the "last" kid to fall down here had been here before, somehow, but F7!$K had taken my advice immediately! I had no idea if, in another timeline, I had this power before... But it didn't matter now. Now I was in control, and it was EVERYTHING I could ask for! "I owe you a HUGE thanks!" I held back my giggle. "You really did a number on that old FOOL! Without your help, I never would have made it past him! But thanks to you..." My face shifted, turning first into Asgore's ugly mug, then into a version much more fitting since... "He's DEAD!" I wanted to lean in, but I held back from that. If I was going to be a real GOD of this world, I had to be a bit more distant. "And now... I'VE got the human SOULs!" I couldn't help it, I giggled this time.
"Where'd he go?" Monika's voice shook in a way that was a far cry from the ordinarily confident appearance that the Club President fronted with. "Player? If he can see you, what does that mean? Does he have control over the Files? Can he-"
"I already told you! He can't delete us anymore than I could." Player answered her question well before it came. Before they knew it, the pair were back-to-back. Monika only barely registered the fact that she could physically feel her Player, and when she did the pit in her stomach only got worse. Because if she could touch him, Flowey could. "He's strong, but I'm pretty sure he needs to kill you to get the final SOUL! Like I said, hold out. I can't tell you how to win, but whatever happens..."
Player turned around and wrapped his hands around Monika's shoulders. The girl's eyes widened as she was suddenly whirled around. "Don't stop moving." He said softly. "I love you..." Monika nearly leaned in for a kiss then. With him holding her, his hands tightly clenched on her shoulders, the vaguest outline of an expression finally forming on his otherwise disembodied visage, it was the closest they had ever really been. Instead, Monika's green eyes filled with resolve and she nodded. She could kiss him later. She would.
"I love you too."
"Awww that's so GROSS!" I laughed as I returned, then got a funnier idea. "But I guess I'll have to live with it. After all, I only have SIX SOULS inside me! I can feel them wriggling hehehehehehe... don't worry, I'll make sure there's room for TWO MORE!" I grinned my favorite grin. Not as creepy as C4a7a's was, but almost there. "Oh but I wonder what's going to happen... After all, it only takes seven to become GOD." I could just taste the power. Once I had eight, I would be something NOBODY's ever seen before. "And once I do... Monsters... Humans... EVERYTHING! I'll show them all the TRUE meaning of this world!" I think I did it that time. I think I managed their expression, if only you were still here to me, you'd be SO proud of what I've become.
I almost left again, getting myself ready, but I figured I might as well get it out of the way here. While they were so scared and looking at me like I was already God. Oh I just couldn't wait, soon I'd have it and when I did... But first, why not a little game? "Oh, but don't worry. I won't kill you two immediately. After all, once I'm God I won't GET to play with you two ever again. So for now, I'm going to save over your own deaths." I think I topped it. Their expression, this time I got it, but I could go further. I could one-up YOU C4a7a! So I did. I paled my eyes and let my tongue roll out, then I sharpened my teeth and opened wider and wider. "So you can watch me kill you both OVER and OVER and OVER HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEE!" But then, then SHE did something I didn't expect.
Her aura ignited. Monika took a step forward, summoning not only her Trident but digging into the depths of Asgore's power. Hundreds of fireballs more erupted around her, enough so that even the negative space that Flowey had created began to glow with a vibrant, pink blaze. Defiant, she raised her weapon and pointed it at Flowey. Player glanced at the monstrosity in front of them... and then joined his girlfriend at her side. "I told you already. Nothing is going to stop me from being with him." She said, then, with only a beat between them, her SOUL blazed brighter, filling with greater PASSION. "But first... I've realized something." She tensed her grip further, leaning into the trident. "You're me. Maybe not in ideal. Maybe we kill for different reasons. Maybe you can't see the lines I could and maybe you're just evil. It doesn't matter. We're still murderers." She closed her eyes, then opened them softly. "But here's the difference. I'm going to change."
Fire burned inside of her, a kind of heat that she wasn't used to feeling. It wasn't just anger, wasn't even just rage or fury, it was hotter than that. More boiling, more righteous than Monika had ever felt in her life. "I'm going to change, but before I do, I'm going to stomp you out." Player glanced at her, Monika barely even noticed it. But when she did, she felt only a small pang of guilt. She'll change. She will, just... Not yet. "Every single thing you are. Every word you've ever said, every action you've ever took, every person you've ever hurt- all of it. I'm going to break it." Her eyes wavered slightly, but like a river she had already decided her course. She resolved herself, even as she felt Player's disappointment hit her shoulders. "And then I'm going to be better." She glanced at Player for only a moment. "I promise."
He giggled. He laughed at that even, so loudly and so proudly that the room itself filled with the guttural guffawing of a complete megalomaniac. "You really think you can stop ME?" He seemed almost disappointed, like a parent scolding a child. He breathed a sigh and almost seemed to shake his head. "You really ARE and idiot."
The SOULS appeared in front of Monika for a moment, then spread out into two staggered rows with three on each side. They seemed strange to her as she looked at them, like they were shaking. Like they were scared. Or maybe like they were angry. Player spoke up. "Monika..." But before he could say more, he was cut off by the entire world suddenly flashing in a deep, crimson red. The SOULS seemed to try to scatter, but before they got far, they vanished and in their place, something large and dark began to float down. Monika felt a surge of adrenaline shoot through her, powered on by primal fear. She shook it off, but couldn't quite get rid of the clammy feeling of sweat on her palms as she looked up at the monstrosity.
Flowey emerged, his body was like nothing she could have imagined. Part of her, the part of her mind dedicated to writing and studying narratives and fiction, may have guessed that he'd take on the look of a much bigger flower, maybe a weed or even a whole garden. Monika knew that's what she would have preferred to see looking down at her, but Flowey had gone several hundred steps further. Eyes that reminded her almost of the ones she had seen on Yuri once or twice- more humanlike and hyperreal than what she was used to- were jammed between thick, industrial-looking tubes and wires like parts of some patchwork metal, flesh and plant Frankenstein. She didn't have very long to get the full grasp of his appearance though, soon enough the large box-TV that the abomination seemed to be using for its true face opened a pair of reddish yellow eyes and dropped a mouth that hung out of the box unnervingly, then...
"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAEHEHEHEAHAHAHEHAHEAHEAHEAHEHAHEHAHEHA!" The music swirled around me as I cackled, the girl was scared out of her little mind, and why wouldn't she be? This new body of mine was the scariest thing I could think of! I'll give her credit though, as the music turned to something more my speed and I spat out stars from my new eyes, she finally launched all those little fireballs towards me. If I was still just a little Flower, it might have even hurt when the flames spread across my vines, burst my leaves and torched my thorns, but I didn't feel a THING! The only part that troubled me was the SOUL inside that I was using as fuel, Patience. Ironically, it seemed to be the least patient of them all as it struggled to be free first. Maybe it had something to do with her little boyfriend. I still couldn't believe that he'd been here this whole time without me noticing, guess I'll have to fix that.
"Help! Help!" Player shouted into the void, but before anything could come from his cries, a pair of flamethrowers emerged on both sides of the entity that Flowey had become and began spewing hyper-realistic belches of fire onto the pair. The boy hissed in pain as the flames racked against his skin, but was thankfully pulled back by Monika before he could be entirely consumed. The girl didn't say anything, instead tucking him under her arm as she abused the still-present battle physics to leap away from the flamethrowers and made an attempt to pass between the unending tide of star-shaped bullets that came screaming out of Flowey's glorious new body. Sadly, she didn't make it all the way. Stars cut across the idiot and her boyfriend's legs before I stopped them and instead decided to circle them with new friendliness pellets. Now that he was done crying out, the SOUL seemed a little more, heh, patient. It still shook though, maybe I needed to punish it...
"Why are you screaming for help?" Monika finally took the time to ask as she, still holding her darling, shot through the small gaps left for her to pass through before the bullets descended onto her previous position. The fight had only been going on for a few seconds at best, and yet Monika was already struggling to maintain even half of her health- Flowey had so generously provided her with an HP bar but had neglected to give himself one. She supposed it made a terrible kind of logic- this wasn't a boss battle for her, it was a game to him.
Before Player could answer, Monika suddenly found herself backing the way she came to narrowly avoid another rain of star-shaped bullets, these coming down in waves akin to what Asgore had used. She hissed as one scraped against her chest, thankful that unlike Undyne's spears, these seemed to have no actual physical body. Landing, Monika set Player down and stepped in front of him before closing her eyes and digging into Asgore's Soul for even more power. The rush that came should have felt intoxicating, Monika should have felt unimaginably strong, but she didn't. In the face of the aberration that Flowey had become, Monika's newfound strength felt woefully underpowered, and even as her eyes shined an unmistakable orange and blue color, as her spear raked across the weed's body and caused it to shake with the force, she felt more like a weak child than she ever had.
Player finally managed to speak up from behind her. "I can't tell you." Monika planted her trident into the ground and held it up to block some of the incoming waves as she glanced back at him the way a wife glances at a lazy husband. "Its not about spoilers!" He added quickly. "You just need to trust me, alright? And- and maybe help me call out."
Monika wanted to ask more, but before her mouth could even open, she let out a grunt of agony as Flowey halted the starburst attack and swapped to flamethrowers. Her trident couldn't help her block things from both sides, and heat washed over both arms and legs in ways that should have charred them black. Monika prepared her own counter, but before she could, Flowey suddenly stopped moving and the television screen that made his face up suddenly showed a new image- one of the Human SOULs, one that seemed to shine with a deep, cyan shade.
I let myself fade into the background, leaving only the box behind to force the little SOUL to watch me use its power to hurt! Honestly, I didn't think it was too bothered by that. I never liked that one, it always looked like it was thinking... Oh well, think about THIS WHY DON'T YOU?
Knives suddenly surrounded Monika and Player, and both of them were forced to scatter away from each other as they began to spin and started moving in a diagonal line towards them. Monika followed the grain, using her experience with the battle physics to easily tuck her body in tightly and float around the blades. Player moved against the grain, his foreknowledge working against him and in tandem with his unfamiliarity with moving in nearly zero-gravity. The blades spun around him for the first wave, cutting and lashing in small increments on his arms and forcing him to cry out in pain. Hearing her darling scream, Monika looked over and grimaced. Her heart thundered in unexpected ways as she watched love of her life flounder around in a vain effort to comprehend the battle physics, then she herself let out a scream of agony as, in her distraction, a blade cut across her SOUL.
The pain was immense, but it didn't feel like anything compared to the fear in her heart- her real heart- for her Player. Was this how he had felt this entire time? Did he feel the same agonizing sickness that she did in this moment as she watched the knives turn and her darling suddenly cry out as the magic lashed his back? Did his arms ache to move, to do anything at all to help her only to realize that it was pointless? That he, just like her now, was ultimately helpless? She felt like her SOUL might crack as another one of the knives cut across her leg- and that's when she remembered it. What Player had asked of her, to trust him. She might have been helpless, but Player certainly believed that someone else could help them. She swallowed.
*Monika called for help...
It didn't come immediately, and she almost felt stupid for doing it as she resolved to grit her teeth and charge in to try saving Player on her own. Yet as the girl readied herself to make the plunge across the void to her darling, the knives stopped and began to shake. Then at once, they turned into vibrant lime green band-aids, and as a mass they rushed towards the pair and applied themselves to their SOULs- or in Player's case, his body directly. Immediately, wounds began to close and the pair felt their strength returning to them. Monika's eyes brightened with sudden relief as she saw Player look over at her and offer a thumbs-up, and for a moment the girl wanted to sob.
But there wasn't time for that. Immediately, I was back to torment the poor little girl some more. Cyan's punishment had been fine, but that Orange one decided to show up and RUIN IT ALL for me! Oh he was up next to be punished, just as soon as I had a little fun with her. This time, I was going to punish her little boyfriend more, she really hated watching him get hurt. So when I summoned my new designs- those pretty little dentata I just made up! Human teeth on plants? What will I do to top that? Well, maybe the fingers... Or maybe I'll make them wriggle before I send them out!
Oh but she tried so hard to help him. The dentata raced across my void and bounced off the walls I'd made, but they had their commands- to rush him and beat him as hard as they could, the first few got a good few bites in before she called out. "Player! Stop treating it like you need something to push off of! Just pick a direction and-!" Oh I hated how cutesy her voice got when she talked about him before, but hearing her ACTUALLY talk to him made my stomach churn. Friendliness pellets surrounded her to make her shut up and focus, which seemed to do the trick. Too bad her boyfriend took the advice and managed to avoid the next barrage. Oh well, I had SO many more better ideas to fling at him.
She dodged through the pellets, but I wasn't quite done with just those, I targeted her SOUL with my vines and launched a few dozen after her, but she had enough warning to jump out of my way the first time. But the second, oh her scream was just delightful! I could listen to it all day long... And I would, but first I summoned a few dozen bombs to rain down on them both and explode on impact with the "ground". I was a little surprised when the girl shot up flames at them and made them blow up in my face, but I only grinned wider.
Because she stopped when she did, and that gave me enough time to target her again, all the while opening up a new set of Venus Flytraps on her boyfriend's side. They began to suck as I dropped more bombs, and she was forced to decide. Dodge me, stop the bombs from hitting her adorable little crush, or let him die. I knew what she'd choose, and it was delicious.
Orange rattled in his cage, but Monika's eyes widened, she knew she couldn't cast her magic while she moved, but she couldn't let Player get hit by that many bombs at once. Flowey's vines raced towards her, her mind screamed at her to move, warned her that she couldn't take too many more hits like this, but the girl could only watch as her Player was yanked towards the opening mouth of the plant in the corner of the void. Monika made her choice. It might have been something she would regret in the future, but she clasped both hands over her trident and pointed it towards her Player before summoning a roaring wave of fireballs that charged towards the bombs and caused them to explode prematurely, saving her Player from injury but allowing Flowey's vines to barrel into her body and SOUL directly.
This time, there was blood. Flowey's vines were much more serious threats than the rest of what he was using, and as they pierced her body and SOUL, Monika cried out in pain and would have dropped if it weren't for the fact that the vines penetrating her embedded themselves into the walls and kept her suspended, impaled on their green bodies. Omega cackled madly as he pulled his vines backward, I intended on leaving it there at first, just stabbing her a bit. But watching her claw and struggle to be free from my hold gave me another wonderful idea! I sprouted thorns as I ripped my way out. In my excitement, I forgot to keep forcing her so-called "Player" to fight against my flytraps, but that only made things more delectable...
'Oh.' Her eyes went wide as my thorns ripped through her ribs and split her in half. Asgore's soul might have made her strong, but even she had a limit to how many hits she could take. I couldn't hide my bloodlust as I peeled each thorn free, one by one. 'So that's what she felt.' Monika's thoughts were a jumbled cacophony of words and feelings- "Run! Hide!" her instincts, she assumed, begged. "Fight, help, Player!" her consciousness pleaded. Blood, however, was the one word she picked out the easiest as she began to fall from her position. Blood, acting out of step with gravity, fell above her, dripping from several gashes and cuts that had been left behind on her abdomen. But easy, didn't mean that it was the most prominent thing. No, as Monika felt her vision starting to go dark, her chest starting to go cold, her hands gently felt the stab wounds in her stomach and chest. 'That's what she felt. Yuri.' Her eyes closed as she hit the ground.
"No! Monika!" Player found his voice suddenly, and with it he found the instinctual intuition needed to kick off of the ground and to her position. He was too late to do anything fanciful like catch her. Instead he could only watch helplessly as her body hit the ground and let out a crack that was not intended to emanate from human bodies. He reached her a half-second later, his hands already pressing themselves to hers. How long had he waited to touch her? How long to feel her hands in his? How much had he- had she longed for this moment, only for it to be sullied by the coppery, oily covering of slick blood? "Monika! Please!" He screamed breathlessly, moving his hands up from her hands to her face. "Just another moment, please!" They had been close, so close to the next phase, the next SOUL, and once they cleared that there would be more health for them, a chance to go on longer, a chance to fight on. "Please! Wake up! Monika!" His voice sounded rough in his throat and his hands suddenly felt useless, only able to hold her in her final moments, not able to do anything, not able to really help her.
"Monika..." He imagined himself reaching into the File Menu and digging out one of the food items they still had, imagined himself setting it between her lips and watching her eyes flutter back, but no matter how much he willed it, it couldn't happen. Something sharp and wet stung his eyes as the spirit grimaced. How long had he waited to hold her? Why was it only when she was dying that he could? What cruel joke was that? Then, gently, an idea prodded him. An idea that wasn't entirely his own, as if it had been pushed into his mind by something outside. Warm, the idea seemed to glow in his mind like the softest glimmers of sunlight at the end of a dark cave. The cave only grew darker as he saw her SOUL lift out of her chest and watched it began to crack. There wasn't time to question why or even how it would, but somehow, he knew the idea would help. So he took a breath and screamed.
*Player called for help.