Chapter Text
For the second time, Undyne looked up at you in awe, again amazed by your speed to defend her with that shield you used. Not only that but the shield had wrapped around them in dome shape, maybe even as a sphere with the other half underground. Again, the fish monster was stunned as she realized the soul energy had sliced through and dispelled the bones holding her and may even go as far as preventing anymore bones from getting through.
Though the former captain wasn't sure if that was an ability you possessed or it was a simple matter of luck. She had seen Papyrus' startled look before it melted into irritation a second later, so that could reason why the bones were dissipated so easily. You had disrupted his concentration with the sudden appearance. Still your determination showed through and saved her life.
Undyne was honestly grateful for that.
Ruining that pleasant feeling was the sudden heavy fatigue she felt once her body realized the toll she took. Especially her cracked rib, which stubbornly made itself be known and forcing her to collapse onto her knees. After bearing the pain a little, Undyne just then realized the gravity of the situation had turned for the worst. She was too battered to continue fighting, not to mention she just didn't have the magic to even maintain her armor; sighing as she watched it fragment and fall, disintegrating into the air. Whatever magic she did have left was at work in trying to heal her wounds as best it could. Which still wasn't it enough sadly.
Even worse, was now that you were in line of sight to the doom knight, the green shield still having barely held off his attack earlier. Undyne was relieved at the save and grateful for it, but she was now fearful that you weren't going to escape his wrath this time. The former captain shook her head clear of the negative thoughts and gritted her teeth as she forced herself to stand, another spear in hand. Sans trusted her to protect you and damnit she was going to do just that!
She shifted to the side to go around you, “Alright, human... Let me handle him now I'm good to go again.” Actually, no she wasn't and part of her was aware that you knew it too. But she was charged to deal with Papyrus until Sans returned... which by the way, where the fuck is he?
Her assumption proved true as your phantom image sidled along to stay directly in front of her. Undyne huffed as you looked over your shoulder with a shake of your head, indicating that you weren't going to let her continue. Your attention was back on Papyrus as you heard the fish monster mutter to herself about stubborn humans. You just smiled a little to yourself about it.
“I'm supposed to protect you, not the other way around.” she griped, scowling at you. You look over your shoulder again, sending her a grateful smile before pointing at yourself then pointing at her. Your head tilted a little with a small smirk.
Undyne lifted a brow before getting the idea of what you were saying. “You're going to protect me now?” You nod. She shook her head at your logic, gesturing to Papyrus, who had yet to move, seemingly distant for a second. “But you're no match for him, in fact you never fought anyone before!”
You hand wiggled in a tilting motion, the universal sign of 'so-so' as Undyne glared at you. “Sparring doesn't count! I know Frisk was teaching you how to dodge but that's not going to help us stop Papyrus!”
You shrugged, tittering softly. And if Undyne didn't know any better, she could've swore she heard you say, “I know but its all I have.” She watched you set your face back to being determined and let the matter drop as you face the skeletal knight again, still tittering. “I'll protect you like you did for me.” Undyne sighed and gave up on talking you out of it. She saw the anger that sparked in your soul that told her that weren't going to listen.
In fact, you had enough of this. You were done listening and sitting by while your friends risked their lives for you. It was no one's fault that it came to this. Papyrus wasn't himself, his magic was out of control and forcing him to do this; perhaps he wasn't even unaware of what he was doing. Or worse he was aware but again, could do nothing but watch. You knew it would haunt him deeply if he was aware, blaming himself for failing to protect his friends and see himself as a threat to them. The vibrate and friendly skeleton reduced to being terrified of himself...
The thought of it filled you with determination to stop this somehow.
Just in time too.
Papyrus was already swinging his sword at your shield.
Startled, both you and Undyne jumped back, seeing that he took opportunity of your distraction to attack. You threw your arms up in reflex to ward off the attack, thoughts running through your soul of slowing his attack. To push him away as his weapon ruptured the shield, and sped forward to swing his second blade at your soul in attempt to cleave you in half with an overhead slash. You could see the orange rings flare bright at the thought of your death.
You were dimly aware of Undyne screaming for you but you didn't react to her words, your thoughts consuming you. “Get away! Getawaygetawaygetaway!”
Green light flashed and wrapped around you and thickened, looking like a flimsy shield sphere. But it looked too thick and squishy. The hell is this? Well whatever it was had caught Papyrus' attack and you watched in disbelief as the sword suddenly slowed before stopping. The skeleton was equally astonished as he tried to push his sword forward and it moved sluggishly along like it was moving around in some kind of gel. Then that's what you realized what the shield turned into...
It was a slime barrier, designed by your thoughts to slow his attack.
In the same amount of time, you also realized that one of your hands was held up and your fingers were curled around the air like you were holding something from stabbing you. It dawned on you, that you were holding the knight's sword magically in your hand. Without really thinking (which you would later guess was by instinct), your hand tightened its grip.
All three of you watched in stunned silence as the soul energy followed your movements; a tendril appeared out of the slime shield and coiled itself around the blade before it traveled upward to latch onto the arm holding the weapon. You pulled your arm back, still clutching the air; the energy responded and yanked him into the gel, dragging him close so you could look at his face.
You felt your face switch from being surprised to give a determined glare before your arm shot forward, pushing the air away from you and releasing your grip. In total sync with your action, your soul energy shoved Papyrus away with such force he practically looked like he was shot out of a cannon. The skeleton flew backwards, too shocked to even scream or rage as he hurtled back, slamming against a tree so hard it splintered from the blow.
“Holy shit!” Undyne stared at the tree before turning her gaze onto you. “How the fuck did you do that!?”
You stuttered in your tittering, sounding a bit like quivering bells as you looked at your transparent hands. “I-I-I don't know! It just... happened? I-I got scared!”
The fish warrior blinked, realizing she could hear you now (just barely though); as the gelatin shield around you quivered and wiggled in your movements before letting herself chuckle nervously as she pressed her fingers to her forehead. Wow, how the hell did she forget about that? “Ah, don't worry about it... I remember why.” She smiled as you gave her a quizzical look, “You're just a soul now. That's your soul energy, your magic; its reacting to what you want it to do, I think.”
You tittered again, looking at her helplessly. “Is... is that a good thing?”
Undyne narrowed her eyes as she tried to catch the words that sounded like a whisper. “Better than just dodging, I'd say. I know you don't want to hit him or mean to but we can't dodge him forever. Though it looks as if you only...” Before she could finish, a stream of bones hailed your way in a bullet storm and a few seconds later, Papyrus charged after them, intent on hitting you with a double strike.
You reacted, suddenly spinning on your heel, one arm arced as if to slap the bones aside. Your magic responded eagerly, a tendril arching and following your spin, catching a majority of the projectiles within the gooey mess of its own arm. Several pierced through, nipping and slashing at your soul as the sped past. They missed Undyne as she quickly dropped to the grass, so you were glad for that. You were amazed that you felt hand clutch something and realize you could feel an odd sensation of the bones in the magic's grasp.
And then you realized what you were doing. You weren't an offensive fighter, only defensive in retaliation to his attacks. At least that's what you were hoping for... right now your magic was just reacting on the instinct of survival.
You completed the spin, arm lashing hard and in a wide arc; the tendril released its grip on the bones with a loud snap. The projectiles whipped back, striking the earth in quick succession; trees were skewered, dirt flew in short bursts and Papyrus was caught in the attack, but you couldn't see how he fared it. You were still surprised at how your magic reacted but you were getting the idea of how it worked. You wrung your hands in worry that your magic could be too much. You wanted to stop him, not kill him!
Bright orange peeked from the smog of dirt and you felt the gather of energy being centered to that thing.
You jolted in recognition before quickly letting your magic grab Undyne and you threw yourself out of harm's way as the dirt smog was blown away by a Gaster Blaster attack. The beam of destructive energy racing by and ripped a hole in the ground somewhere behind you. It was close that's for sure as you felt the heat of the energy as it exploded, the shock-wave ramming into your back to shove you forward.
As you stumble forward from the shock-wave, your eyes widen in horror in understanding that the Gaster Blaster had been Papyrus' own distraction; allowing him to close the distance to bring you within striking range. His face was covered in shadow but you could make out his sharp grin as the orange rings glowed in his eyes in apparent victory.
“Is that really the best you can do?” Papyrus hissed darkly, the grin never changing. “Your attack is fast but pitiful!” He snarled before you suddenly felt one blade slice at your soul, the attack was lowered a little by the gelatin barrier but it still caused a substantial amount of damage to you. Your heart flickered in response to the hit just as his other sword joined the fray but there wasn't pain. At least not in the sense of your health dropping; but the pain of feeling the wind getting knocked out of you as the blade smashed into your chest and sent you flying upwards.
The doom knight laughed as he ignored Undyne, who screamed in worry for you. “Did you honestly think you could harm me by chipping away at my health with just one point of damage?!” He sneered up at your tumbling form, his words registering in your mind. Wait, you were only dealing just one point of damage per strike? How shit could your attacks be!? Then again, that was a good thing, least you can't kill him by accident... hopefully.
He smiled as he watched you flail; as annoying as you were to him in your constant knack of preventing him from killing Sans and Undyne... he was actually having a lot more fun than he thought. He rarely had to fight this hard before. The captain had always given him a good spar but even that had been lacking in his opinion.
But this time?
This time he was having a thrill he never felt in a long time. Still, he had a mission to complete and he played around long enough. He basically figured out how you fought and he wasn't going to plan in giving you any kind of breathing room. If he couldn't attack you outright, then time to test how fast you were. The skeleton summoned a large bone from the ground underneath his feet, commanding it to erupt with such a force to propel himself at Undyne, who was distracted by watching you flail in the air.
You briefly wondered why his follow up swing hadn't damaged you tumbled end over end through the air. A memory bubbled up in your soul's mind, recalling Frisk's words as they were teaching you dodging tactics.
*~*~*
“You need to read your opponent's moves to dodge the attacks better. But don't worry if you get hit. If you take damage, your soul will be granted a mercy frame.”
“What's a mercy frame?”
“A mercy frame is a phase that your soul will flicker, any attack that strikes your soul while flickering will cause no damage to you. You can use that to your advantage to move to a more suitable spot to dodge some more.”
*~*~*
Oh. That's right.
You did see your heart flicker just before Papyrus slammed that second sword into you. You wonder if he knew of that. No, doesn't look like he does, otherwise what would be the point of him attacking you again so soon after the first strike? Either way, it was your advantage as you managed to straighten yourself out just in time to see him fly toward a distracted and helpless Undyne.
The little green heart lurched in fear at Papyrus' change of tactics. You tittered loudly. “Undyne! NO!” You lash a hand toward earth closest to the fish monster, watching as your magic obeyed the silent command as a tendril of forest green shot toward its goal. You watched as Undyne jumped back in surprise as the tendril stabbed the earth, before seeing the doom knight's looming form coming at her, paling at the thought of death. “GET AWAY FROM HER!” You jerked your arm back, the tendril responded in yanking you down from the air so fast you just slung-shot your way across the distance.
What you didn't notice, however, was the simple fact that you were traveling the same speed as Papyrus was. That in turn caused you to collide into him, sending him crashing off course and into ground, digging up a trench as he went. The accidental attack wasn't without price, making you flinch as your heart flickered from smashing into the knight's thick armor.
You stagger to your feet dizzily as a thought buzzed across your mind for a brief second. How the hell were you not even dead yet? You jolted a little as you felt a hand on your shoulder and Undyne whispered in your ear as she watched the distance. “Human, listen to me, you need to pull back.”
You shook your head, regretting it a little as you vision swam. You felt so tired... adrenaline crash? Wait... you weren't in your body anymore. Do souls gets adrenaline crashes?
The former captain hissed, “Seriously, you need to. Your health is about to hit zero damnit.”
You went still, tittering softly. “How low?”
Undyne went quiet for a bit then sighed, “Ten health points left out of two hundred.” She felt you shiver in fear and continued to whisper. “Normally I would question why your health is that high when you swore you never killed a monster before. Figured you were lying somehow.”
You went to protest but she hushed you, “But then I figured something out. You're determined to protect us in whatever way... you're determined to protect me and even go as far as being determined to save Papyrus from his magic backlash.” She sighed, “I don't know much about souls like Alphys but I think your determination is beefing up your health and defense but leaves you with a real shitty attack power, even your evasion took a hit from that kind of intent. But that's just a guess of mine. Alphys would know more about it hopefully.”
Her eye scanned the battlefield and sensed him. She moved her hand to the back of your soul. “I recovered enough magic to do this for you since you're not backing away.” You blinked but shivered as an odd but pleasant sensation pulsed through you and in your soul's eye, you could see your health regaining points. Undyne was healing you. You glance at her in question and she grinned tiredly at you. “Members of the Royal Guard have to have some basic healing training. I wasn't an exception to it, granted we never really had much use for it outside of healing sparring injuries.”
You felt refreshed, seeing that your health was topped off but came at a price. You cried out as Undyne wavered and dropped to one knee, once again drained of magic; having forced every ounce she could spare to heal you completely even if her healing skills weren't exactly the best. As you moved to help her, the former captain waved you away. “Don't worry about me. Focus on him. He's coming.”
You turn back to where you sent the knight crashing and sure enough, Papyrus stood there as stoic as ever. And just as refreshed as you were. Shit, he just healed himself didn't he? Yeah, he did and you knew it. But... there was something else to it as well. You don't know why but you felt that something was different about him, you couldn't quite put your finger on it but you know something changed. You ignored it in favor of focusing as he clapped his hands mockingly at you.
“My my, certainly didn't expect you to pull such a maneuver. Granted you have some skill for preventing me in claiming my kills.”
You tittered angrily, shifting into a defensive stance, again making sure you planted yourself between him and Undyne. “Leave her out of this. You fought with her before and now your fight is with me.”
He shrugged nonchalantly, “That may be true but it seems as though the Captain had failed in teaching you the basics of war.” You rolled your eyes at the declaration. This whole arrogant manner did not suit Papyrus well at all and you couldn't wait for him to return to normal. He drew his sword and waved it dismissively around the area they stood in. “In the battlefield... everyone in the enemy's forces is fair game to kill. Whether or not they're ready to fight again.”
“How honorable of you.”
“War has nothing to do with honor, human. You should know that. Your species does that enough in their history.” Papyrus hissed, his tone a whip of contempt as he glared at you. “The ends justify the means and anyone... anyone who stands in the way of that goal is to be put to death.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Undyne failed to collect your soul while knowing fully well that we are to get seven human souls. We only have six... and yours was just right there and she didn't get it. Such failure is not allowed within the Royal Guard... regardless of position. She will pay for her failure with her life as well as that of my useless brother.”
You tense and growl, preparing yourself for whatever attack that may come. “Cry me a fucking river, I'm not letting you hurt Undyne or Sans.”
“We'll see.” he murmured before suddenly dashing forward, startling you at his speed. You didn't get to raise a defense before his swords were slashing into you. Your barrier absorbed the brunt of the force but the blade still cut into you, making your heart flicker. You jolted as you realize he was going to repeat the same tactic as before, the second blade smashing into your chest to send you flying upward again.
Papyrus grinned as he prepared to launch himself at Undyne again but you were ready this time. His smile was short lived and replaced with a dumbstruck look as you shot a tendril at him, wrapping it around his waist and jerking him toward you. He didn't see it coming, that was for sure, but he shook himself out of it and took the opportunity to attack you with a frenzy.
You cry out in pain as you felt the blades slice into you but didn't stop you from moving your arms, shoving both your hands out toward him, palms facing him. Tendrils of soul magic answered your call, striking back at Papyrus with same ferocity he displayed in attacking you. They stabbed into his body, doing minimal damaged but striking just as fast as he did. You were lucky that your soul repeatedly went into the mercy frame, most of his attacks doing nothing to you as they phased though you. But it still didn't keep the fear of dying right then and there from taking too much damage.
You both paused in your attacks, glaring at one another. You were amazed that both you and Papyrus pulled your arms back for overhead strikes. Your soul was still flickering by the time you attacked each other at the same time. The knight's sword strike smashing into you and sent you plummeting to the earth below just as the soul tendril rammed into his chest, punching him backwards to crash into the ground in an angle away from you.
Two dirt geysers blew when the two of you land.
You huffed as you stumble to your feet, checking your damage as the fish warrior ran toward you and flinched at missing another large chunk of health. You honestly didn't know how long you could keep this up. You doubt Undyne had recovered enough to heal you again and you weren't willing to weaken her again just for that. Hell you don't even know how much damage you scratched into Papyrus' health. Not a whole lot you figure, given your poor attack score. But then again, beating him wasn't exactly the plan. As far as you knew, you only had to stall him until Sans arrived with something to help you and Undyne... maybe some back up.
Backup would be nice. Yeah, that'd be great right now actually.
You puffed, staring at the direction Papyrus had been thrown to and got ready, focusing on catching him. Sensing his approach, Undyne shifted to get out of your way, staying behind you a few paces to give you room to jump back when you needed to. You spied a flash of orange within the smokescreen seconds before the doom knight raced out, a cluster of bones following him before he sent them to go around him and attack first. You growl, lashing your arm out to let the tendril to sweep them aside, hopefully to knock the skeleton away as well. It didn't work out as you hoped as he ducked under it as he kept running toward you.
You hiss and held out your hand, a tendril catching his swing and lifted him high before smashing into the ground and threw him aside, dragging him across the ground while at it. Papyrus skipped along the ground before catching himself, getting his feet under him to land; sword stabbed and digging a trail along the ground to slow his speed. He laughed, eyes flashing brightly in a flare of orange flame as he thrust an arm toward you. The ground rumbled and came alive once more as bones charged toward you and Undyne from all sides ground-wise.
“Shit.” You jumped back and nearly land right on Undyne as you focused on creating a shield again to wrap around the both of you to block the hits. You shivered as you felt the shield shake and tremble under the onslaught of bones that were slamming against it with heavy force. You glare beyond your bubble of protection at Papyrus that stood back and directed the bones to keep attacking. You glare even more at his smug look.
Cheeky sonofa-
A pair of Gaster Blasters appeared on either side of you, mouths open to fire. You let out a string of curses as you coil one tendril of magic around her and jump back a couple of times to escape the blast radius, pulling her along. The lasers fired, passing each dragon like skull, even from a distance you could feel the heat of their energy. The bones kept their relentless attack on your shield as another pair of Blasters appeared on your front and back. You hiss as you barely dodge again as they released their charges, part of the laser kissed the shield and began shaving away at it. You shifted again to prevent it from breaking through.
The bones continued to dog you, it was taking its toll as fractures formed all around. You hiss as you focused on reinforcing it. “Come on... hold steady damnit.” Several of the cracks faded but did little to reassure you as the bones persisted in battering your bubble of protection wherever you went. Another pair of dragon skulls appear again, one facing you at an angle and the other facing away from you. You didn't dash away in time, the shield taking an indirect hit by the laser, weakening under the onslaught of pure magical power before you tear yourself away to escape. A large ugly cracked formed in punishment for your slow reflexes, the fractures deepening and to your horror... bits of the shield were breaking away.
Papyrus laughed, tone dark and cold. “You can't dodge forever.” He grinned sadistically, “In fact you can't protect her and yourself forever.”
“Fucking watch me!”
“Oh I will! And I'm going to enjoy watching you writhe as you howl in agony!”
You felt a dark chill go through you as you looked around wildly for the next two Gaster Blasters, ignoring the bones that beat a rhythm of destruction on your shield. Where are they!? Where were they going to strike from this time? More of your shield crumbled away as you searched. It was by Undyne's gasp of fear that you realized your mistake as the bones stop their attack and disappear. You gaze fell to the ground beneath you.
Large, flat image of a dragon's skull leered up at you, grinning evilly.
You gasped at seeing it charge was full and ready to release it. You only had seconds to strengthen the shield as best as possible before focusing most of your gelatin barrier to surround Undyne. She shook her head, staring at you in horror. “NO! DON'T!”
It fired the laser directly at you.
The shield shuddered and quaked for a few seconds bearing the full force of the attack before the strength of the blast proved to be too much. The green shield shattered like glass, the fragments of it disintegrating in the energy. Your barrier protected the fish monster from the heat of the beam as you directed your soul to cover her and took the brunt of the attack.
You howled a wordless shriek as the blaster's energy enveloped you, consuming all that you saw. You barely heard Undyne's own scream of despair over yours.
Agony.
It was all you felt.
All you knew right then as you felt it jolt and course through your soul, making you convulse as it burned and tore at you. You didn't even notice your heart was flickering from the tremendous blow you were taking. In your soul's eye, you barely registered your health had dropped dramatically by fifty with the help of your higher defense. You didn't care, you just wanted the pain to stop. You didn't know how long it lasted. Minutes. Days. It felt like forever to you and it was driving you insane with it.
At long last, the laser had run its course, the energy spent and dissipating as the dragon's skull faded away. Papyrus grinned as you drop from the air, landing heavily on the earth and laid there broken and battered. Soul-wise at least.
“Fucking hell! Come on kid, wake up!” Undyne crawled back to you, looking you over in horror before checking your health. It was dipping dangerously past the halfway mark. The former captain winced. You had taken a direct hit by that beam; maybe the pain had hit harder than the actual attack and you were in shock of it. She poked at your soul, trying to get you to respond but you merely looked through her, trembling from pain.
“I thought as much.” Papyrus purred as he walked toward you two, a smug grin forming on his face as Undyne growled and stood over you, bristling at his approach with another spear in her hands. “You couldn't protect yourself and the Captain for long. I told you.”
“Get the hell away from them you sick f-”
“And I... I told you... to-to watch m-me, asshat.”
If you had the energy, you'd laugh at his expression as Papyrus turned his gaze slowly to stare at you. The disbelief was funny to see. You heart flickered and glowed dimly, in show of how weakened you were as you dragged yourself to your feet. Even Undyne stared at you in concern, like she wasn't sure if you were even sane anymore to stand back up. “How the living hell can you still stand after that!?”
“Be-because... f-fuck you... that's why.” you puff, forcing yourself to grin at him. Hell, you weren't sure how you were still standing. Were you even conscious now? God, you had to be tired to even start wondering if you were conscious or not, considering you were a soul right now for god sakes. “Plus, I still got... ninety HP left, Paps.”
“You little...” The knight began growling before he started chuckling to himself. He scanned you p and down and you bristle at the contempt look he sent you. “You're bluffing, human. Look at you. You can barely stand, so I doubt you even have ninety HP.” He shrugged as he lifted his sword to point at you, ignoring Undyne that sidled a little to protect you. “Either way, you both will die but I will admit that I was rather entertained by you two this entire time. I'll end this quickly so I can return to my mission of collecting the human souls. I can practically feel the souls out there.”
“Yeah, you're really going to enjoy feeling this sole, pal.”
Papyrus jolted at the sudden addition of a new voice. It took him a second to realize who it was before a blur flew right at him and slammed the sole of their shoe against the side of the doom knight's helmet and sent him flying off to the side. You and Undyne were startled at not just the sudden appearance of a familiar face but the reddish-purple flame that surrounded the leg before it kicked the knight aside.
You both turned and blinked as Sans kept to the shadows of the tree near you. You knew it was him, as if the bright blue of his left eye and his voice were any indications. You also knew he felt... different and looked different too but it was hard to see because he stayed by the tree's shadow.
Sans lifted a hand at you two in greeting, his grin still on his face. “Sorry we're late. Traffic was a real birch, did we miss anything?”
You both groaned at the terrible pun. “Sans, no... please.”