Chapter Text
Now, Flowey likes Decibat well enough, but right now the pathetic worm of a monster happens to be in the way. Fortunately, the time to get rid of him is nigh, though Chara being willing to go along with the plan is something that Flowey hadn’t actually expected. It’s an outlier for sure, albeit one that he’d be a fool to complain about. Chara’s behavior since falling into the underground for the second time could only be described as strange. A tiny hint that they haven’t lost their mischievousness is a reassuring one, indeed.
And so, when Chara tiptoes towards the whining Decibat, Flowey’s smirk grows ever-wider. So wide, in fact, that it’s surprising the expression stays on his face and doesn’t pop off entirely. He can’t stop himself from grinning, looking forward to what Chara will do to this monster who had done nothing wrong except been in the wrong place at the wrong time. More importantly, Decibat also happened to be an annoying little pest at this moment, so Flowey wouldn’t feel bad for what will ensue next even if he did have a SOUL.
Decibat, to his credit, is actually quick to realize that the noise he had been complaining about for the past few minutes just went away. A sigh of relief flies free from his throat. Slowly, his wings begin to flap slower, the monster pleased with the apparent absence of that pesky human and the weird flower on their shoulder. Flowey may not be able to see well in this darkness, but he can practically imagine the pleased look on Decibat’s face now. What a shame that it won’t last for much longer…is what he would say if he had it in him to care.
“Sweet silence,” croons Decibat, voice sounding like the epitome of relaxed.
Flowey looks at Chara. Chara looks at Flowey. They nod - it’s go time.
“Not anymore!” Chara shouts in the most obnoxious tone known to monsters, “I, um, s-spit on your silence. You’ll have to deal with my noise instead!”
In typical fashion for him, Decibat lets out a very unpleasant screech from the sudden return of the annoying noise. Chara winces from the sound, but continues to annoy the monster who did nothing wrong except wish to defend his turf from the terror of cacophonous humans. They stomp their feet against the invisible ground, they use their toy gun (Flowey still wonders why they have that in the first place) to ricochet fake bullets off the walls. Even the most minor disruption leaves Decibat whining, to say nothing of the loud gunshots bouncing off the walls.
“Noise hurts! Stop!” cries the distraught Decibat, “H-hmph!”
It only takes a few more gunshots for Decibat to give up the ghost at last. And, more importantly, give up on turning Chara into one themself. The bat lets out one last agonized huff before raising his wings skyward - metaphorically, of course, the Underground has no sky - and flying off, likely to annoy someone else to keep themself quiet or be punished for their impudence. Chara only stops once the sounds of Decibat’s flapping completely peter out.
Ironically, it’s only now that silence settles over the atmosphere at last.
Silence that Flowey very characteristically breaks without a second thought: “Golly, that was a total waste of time! I’m surprised you didn’t just shoot that bat dead, Clover.”
“You didn’t tell me to,” is Chara’s very blunt counterstatement.
“...fair point. Anyway!” Flowey gives Chara’s shoulders a few pats with his vines, “We should continue on now. That guy is behind us, and soon enough this lame place will be as well.”
Chara merely nods in response. With the only threat now gone, they have all the time in the world to re-collect the bullets that they shot out. They’re not actual gun casings, otherwise Decibat would certainly be more dead than bat, but nothing is saying that they can’t be helpful down the line. Flowey, seeing no reason to stop them from taking items that could further incentivize violence, gladly allows Chara to continue their search. Even if they give him second-hand embarrassment by constantly bumping into walls like a total klutz.
Flowey at least has the basic decency to not criticize them for doing such. The Dark Ruins are named as such for a reason, and this happens to be the area that all monsters find seeing in an impossibly difficult task. Since monsters have better vision than humans on average to begin with, Flowey can’t imagine how blind Chara is right now. He’ll forgive them for their clumsiness just this once, though they’ll need to work on that in the future if they want to survive down here and not cost him any resets.
Somehow, I have a feeling that many more of those are to come…no matter how much I don’t want them to.
The good news is that the rest of the Dark Ruins aren’t particularly difficult to navigate. Following the confrontation with Decibat, nothing much of interest happened. There were a few monsters who dared to try and steal Chara’s SOUL, but all it took was a threatening gesture of his handy-dandy vines and they were sent running off like the losers. Although Chara had frowned from his rudeness, Flowey merely laughed it off, giving them some lazy excuse about the beasts wanting to hurt them.
In his defense, he actually was correct about that. Little things were more desirable to a monster than the fresh SOUL of a human, served to them on a silver platter. With how oddly docile Chara was from the very first moment they fell down here, Flowey considers himself justified in constantly fearing the worst for their health. He doesn’t want to see them sad, but he’ll endure seeing their occasional pouty looks if it means they’re safe at the end of it all.
And so, when Flowey finds himself (or rather, finds Chara) walking headfirst into danger once more, his first instinct should be to stop them. While he’d certainly like to do such a thing, the unlucky truth of the matter is that he sadly can’t. The exit to the Dark Ruins is blocked by its replacement for Toriel: the anti-social vampire simply known as Dalv. Flowey, in all of his messing around, does know a few things about the antisocial de facto guardian of this dreary area.
For one, he certainly is an interesting fellow to mess around with. Not as fun as his partner-in-crime Decibat, but entertaining enough to where Flowey spares him every now and then when he isn’t slaughtering every monster to feel some semblance of joy. Dalv is shy, to say the least; while that normally wouldn’t be Flowey’s type, befriending him isn’t even that difficult. Past that point, there are a number of options. Betraying him, running away the very next day and imagining the sadness on his face…variety is something Flowey greatly values, meaning that Dalv could actually be considered important.
Sadly, in this instance, Dalv is important for all the wrong reasons. Flowey knows the story of the human with the blue SOUL well - it’s all the monsters of the Waterfall like to talk about when they meet someone they deem as new to the area. According to those dummies, the human descended upon the underground with the alleged strict goal in mind to slaughter as many monsters as possible. They certainly succeeded at that, Dalv avoiding their wrath notwithstanding. Sometimes, Flowey wonders what it’d be like if he had perished that day, leaving the Dark Ruins without their so-called caretaker.
Other times, he doesn’t wish to imagine that at all. It’d be rather boring if one of the two interesting monsters in the Dark Ruins were permanently dead. Either way, Dalv considers Chara a threat, if his mumblings when they ran into him earlier indicated anything. A dangerous prospect for sure. While Dalv may be a pacifistic monster at heart, that isn’t the case when it comes to matters of humans. Flowey can’t fully blame him for that, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying.
Nor does it make it any less dangerous when he and Chara finally reach the end of the road. The only way to get out of this dumb place is through Dalv’s house. What a shame, then, that he doesn’t look very pleased to discover that they’ve stalked him all this way. Slowly, Dalv turns his hooded head around, visibly flinching when he spots Chara and the weird flower on their shoulder right there in front of him. Chara, unaware of the danger that they’re in, merely tilts their head with childlike innocence.
“...why have you followed me?” asks the distraught Dalv, “Have you truly returned to finish what you started? I thought that you were finally gone from my memories, but it seems as if I was wrong…”
“Huh?” is Chara’s very confused reply, “What are you talking about? I’m following you because I wanna get out of here, so-”
“You want to get out of here to hurt more monsters,” Dalv oh-so-rudely interrupts, putting a scowl on Flowey’s face and a frown on Chara’s, “The innocence in your eyes won’t fool me a second time. I’m not going to let you bring harm to anyone in your path again!”
Unaware of the danger that they’re in, Chara’s next response is, ironically enough, a bit too blunt and sassy for Flowey’s liking: “Okay? I just asked what you’re talking about.”
Dalv, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to be in the mood for talking past that point. In his hands, he grasps a bolt of crackling lightning, making Chara gasp and lose their focus. Thus, they’re virtually unprepared for Dalv to hurl the electricity at them, sending them falling to the ground and collapsing onto the hard stone beneath their feet. Flowey, too, goes flying, unprepared for Dalv to have reacted in such a harsh manner when he’d have an aneurysm over having to talk to a singular little flower.
“Ow!” Chara and Flowey exclaim simultaneously.
Being a monster held together by magic and determination, combined with the fact that he has practically taken every attack in the Underground head-on by this point, Flowey doesn’t actually show much reaction to Dalv’s outburst. Smiley Trashbag is far more irritating to deal with than any monster. No attacks really phase Flowey unless they come from that piece of garbage. He shakes himself off and gets back up (metaphorically) within mere seconds, like he had never been hurt at all.
On the other hand, Chara is anything but unaffected by the attack. Lightning is painful for any regular monster, so it only stands that striking a human child with it would be an instant knockout. Flowey’s eyes widen in horror at the sight of Chara’s twitching body, a pained look in their eyes as their body convulses. He forgets all about Dalv and quickly worms his way over to their side. Slowly, Flowey raises a vine from the ground to grasp onto their hand.
“C-Chara,” he wheezes out, “It’ll be f-fine, Chara, just h-hold on and-”
“Please move out of the way. I don’t wish to hurt you.”
The sound of Dalv’s voice only makes Flowey all the more enraged. Still, he keeps his attention completely focused on Chara, not even bothering to call them by their fake name like they want him to. It’s not that he disrespects their wishes, but right now he isn’t at all in the right headspace to bother with their identity nonsense. Flowey keeps his vines wrapped tight around them, praying to the gods that never blessed monsterkind that Chara will be alright.
They don’t answer. If anything, they seem to mock his misery. Dalv shoots out yet another wave of harsh lightning, blowing the already injured Chara back into the nearby purple walls. Flowey practically screeches in rage, once again maneuvering himself over to check on his best friend. This time, he diverts a vine over to their heart, using another to squeeze their scorched arm to see if that rouses them out of unconsciousness. Much to Flowey’s horror, he can feel no pulse from either area. Chara, his best friend, is gone.
Flowey’s face somehow manages to fall, his state as a literal flower notwithstanding.
“Chara…” Deep inside of him, Flowey wails, but he finds himself unable to do so in the living world. The living world that Chara is no longer a part of.
How long had it been since he last bothered to SAVE? Perhaps that answer doesn’t really matter, considering that the only thing he wants to do right now past mourning is utterly destroy the one that did this to his friend. Flowey whips his head around so quickly that Dalv, the one who had so easily killed a human child without remorse, throws his hands up in terror. Terror that Flowey can’t enjoy when this wretched monster took away the one person who understands him when no one else bothers to do so.
“You,” Flowey sneers out, “This is all your fault!”
“I-I was just trying to-”
Dalv’s words are tragically cut off by a vine piercing through his chest without any warning. Compared to Toriel, the de facto guardian of the Dark Ruins is no trouble at all to handle. Flowey watches Dalv’s eyes widen with horror and fear at the realization that he just got stabbed through that useless vampiric heart of his. It’s a sight that Flowey would find joy in at the best of times. With Dalv having murdered poor Chara, he takes sadistic glee in it rather than basic mirth.
Flowey isn’t only satisfied with stabbing Dalv through his chest, however. To add insult to the very big gaping injury, he uses his vines to attack him multiple times, giving him no hope of a break or an escape. Dalv’s screams are like music to Flowey’s ears. Even if he did have a SOUL, he’d feel no remorse for the literal monster that ended Chara’s life. Being able to simply RESET their life back doesn’t let Dalv slide off the hook for killing them in the first place.
Rhetorically, Flowey asks: “Do you know how much time you just wasted?!”
Despite the very obvious fact that the one asking him this question is also the one killing him, Dalv is incompetent enough to open his mouth to reply. He immediately gets punished for doing so with a vine through the neck, which would’ve killed any other ordinary monster instantly. Flowey is well-aware that he’ll turn to dust soon enough either way; rather than killing him right then and there by snapping his jugular, the flower sinks back into the ground to return to Chara’s side. Leaving Dalv to die slowly in the time it takes the sadistic flower that killed him to RESET.
“I w-was just trying t-to help,” Dalv repeats, but his words only reach the ears of someone who prefers to see him lifeless.