Chapter Text
"In this world, it's kill or be killed," the flower repeats, as though it were a mantra or some kind of demented catchphrase. Just like the first time he said it, something about the words grates at your mind. You've been trying not to remember everything that happened right before you died, but...
You feel tears running down your face, and for a moment you're disoriented and almost ashamed, but then you realize they're not yours. Did Frisk really manage to get that attached to the king in the ten seconds between him trying to kill them and his death? You know Frisk gets attached to people stupidly easily, but this is a new low even for them.
He wanted to be a family, they answer hollowly to your jeering.
Yes, he does that, you tell them. Trust me, you aren't missing much.
It's not that living with Asgore was bad, exactly. He and Toriel took much better care of you than any human ever had, and you aren't completely ungrateful for that. It's just that it got to be exhausting, the way he kept angling for you to express that gratitude, to express a love and trust you did not and could not feel. You know how adults are. You know that you have to compromise your dignity with them, to give them at least the illusion of control, the illusion that you're exactly whatever kind of child they want you to be. You know what happens when you refuse to do that. So you never called Asgore your dad, but you also didn't object when he called himself that, or when he wore that hideous sweater proclaiming it to the world, or even when he referred to Asriel as your brother. You have to admit, it was a little bit funny seeing Asriel squirm when he did that — but you were squirming too, and that wasn't funny at all.
Still, you would have forgiven him for all of that if only things had really been like you thought they were when Frisk first entered New Home. As they'd dragged you through the Underground, you'd been wondering how Toriel had ended up alone in the Ruins, and how Asgore of all people had ended up killing humans. Then, wonderfully, it turned out that was all thanks to you. Maybe your death hadn't been in vain after all. Maybe there was even a point to your having been woken up and trapped by an insufferable little human in a body you couldn't control. Maybe you would be able to retain consciousness when Asgore absorbed their soul, and you would get to watch as humanity fell to your own orchestrations.
That's not going to happen, Frisk told you then. Apparently, you think too loudly when you get excited. You have to work on that. Them having access to your mind is even more uncomfortable than you not having access to their body. Everyone keeps saying he's really nice, so there must be a way to talk him down. Maybe I'll have to die a hundred times to find it. But I will find it.
You idiot, you gloated back. A boss monster with just one human soul could splatter something like you before you even get the chance to open your mouth. Asgore has six. There is no victory condition for you here. He'll just kill you over and over until you break.
Even then, though, something niggled at you. Why hadn't Asgore gone to the surface after absorbing the first soul? Maybe Asriel's death had scared him, made him overestimate the strength of humans and choose to play things safe. Then Frisk brought you face to face with him, and he seemed completely unchanged from what you remembered, but you still dared to hope that maybe, maybe...
It wasn't until you saw the still-unabsorbed souls floating in their canisters that you had to accept the truth. The king was as cowardly as his dead son. All the monsters putting up with his nonsense and pinning their hopes on him were cowards too, or maybe just idiots. It didn't really matter. Nothing mattered. Your resurrection was a sick joke, just like your whole life had been.
You didn't even particularly care when, after a dozen or so deaths, Frisk stopped talking and started fighting for the first time since they'd left the Ruins. You could feel your knife in your hand, slashing trails of dust from the flesh on Asgore's arms, and it meant nothing. Frisk would kill him and take his soul and return to the place that they hated so much they had tried to die to escape from it. They were human, so why wouldn't they be that nonsensically horrible? Maybe the captain of the guard would keep her word and hunt them down. Maybe they would kill her too, or maybe she would be sensible enough to absorb the souls and unleash their full power. Maybe then humanity would get what it deserved. But even that didn't feel like it would count as a victory, because it would have almost nothing to do with you, and the idea of monsters inheriting the Earth had lost most of its appeal. They were all cowards or idiots.
The only person you've ever called a friend was both.
You were thinking about him when the flower showed up, after Frisk changed their mind again. You were remembering how he had betrayed you, were recalling the words you had screamed into his head when you'd begged him not to throw both your lives away for the sake of human garbage. And you're almost certain, now, that it's not deja vu. You aren't quite so certain that it's not a coincidence, because that was hardly the most original thing you've ever said, kill or be killed. That first part, though. In this world... When you said it, you're fairly sure you meant the surface. The first time the flower said it, you thought he meant the Underground — which confused you, because that was obviously nonsense. But what if he was quoting out of context? Wouldn't that answer some questions?
It would raise a lot of other questions, though. Including some uncomfortable ones. About feelings.
You sense Frisk reaching for their save. They want to go back for Asgore. Not even to salvage his soul so that they can escape, just to keep him from dying. After all the times he killed them. Ridiculous.
The flower (Asriel?) stops them. He's in control now, and he has a lot to say about it. There's so much giddy chatter, a whole monologue, just like your games of pretend whenever you let him be the villain. Which you didn't do often, because it never felt right. If there's a human and a monster, then of course the human is the villain. All monsters believed that, and so did you. You would have been happy enough being villains together, but Asriel wouldn't allow it. He always wanted a story where the hero won, even if it wasn't him.
If this is really what's become of him, then apparently he doesn't think that way anymore.
"It feels great to have a soul inside me again!" he says. Again. He had one, and then he lost it? When he died, maybe. And then he came back as one of your flowers. Somehow. It's no stranger than what's happened to you.
Maybe you're just seeing what you want to see. You know you really shouldn't want to see Asriel, after everything he did to you, but you feel so trapped and hopeless right now. You desperately need a friend, and he's the only friend you've ever had, the only friend you can even imagine having.
Frisk lifts your knife against his bloated, beastly form, and for some reason, you feel a little sick.
He kills them almost instantly.
Then, he kills them again.
The third time, they manage to get your knife in him. It does basically nothing, and then they die.
This is kind of funny. Were you afraid they were going to hurt him? If so, that was awfully silly of you. You savor the shadow of their pain: the dull, distant ache, like the feeling of being beaten in a dream. It's not comfortable, exactly, but knowing how much worse it is for them makes it feel sort of good.
What if I can't do this? you hear Frisk wonder in the void between life and death, the darkness outside of time where all that exists is them and you. What if it's impossible?
And just like that, you have hope again. This is it, your one last chance to win.
Calm. You have to stay calm. If you let them hear what you're planning, it's all over forever.
It's not impossible, you tell them. But there's no way you can do it. Let me try.
Doubt. Distrust. They don't believe you're strong enough to kill him, and if you are, then they really shouldn't let you out.
I'm not going to kill him. I want to try your way.
Why? Doubt. Distrust. Confusion. But also, cautiously, hope. They want so badly to believe that there's some good in you, some way to reach a compromise and free themself from your hate.
Don't laugh. Not even in your mind. Calm.
I think I know who he is. If I'm right, then we were friends, once. I want to talk to him.
Could you maybe just tell me what to say?
That won't work. He won't listen to anyone but me. And no, you can't just impersonate me. Not convincingly enough to fool my best friend.
They don't answer right away, but you can sense that they're considering it.
Please, Frisk, you say. You wonder if they can feel how desperate you are, how honestly it hurts you to choke down your pride and beg. I want to talk to my friend again. Please.
They hesitate just a moment longer. Then: Good luck.
Time shifts around you, and suddenly, you are alive again. You are alive again. You draw breath into their lungs. Their pulse spikes with your thrill of triumph. You can still feel them in the background: anxious, worried, hopeful. They could probably wrest control right back, if they chose to. You'll have to be careful.
Asriel (please be him, please be him) starts monologuing again. You shout over his mockery, "Shut up, you dumb goat!"
He does. The face on his screen flickers through a half dozen expressions in a fraction of a second, too quickly for you to decipher any of them, before settling into carefully controlled impassivity. "What did you call me?"
"Then it really is you." Your heart feels warm and light. Frisk's heart. Your heart. Everything they have is yours, or will be soon enough. "Asriel Dreemurr."
"What are you saying?" The screen flickers again. "Why are you using that name? I'm Flowey! Flowey the flower!"
"Look at me, Asriel." You adjust your grip on your knife, comfortable and confident and entirely unlike Frisk. "Look close." You reach down deep inside yourself and pull up your favorite memory: the blood on your hands, the fire in your veins, the incomparable ecstasy of having won in the most complete way that it's possible to win at fighting. You hold in your heart that one perfect moment of golden happiness, and you smile like only you can smile.
Back before you died, Asriel never knew what he was requesting when he asked to see your "creepy face". He certainly didn't know what lay just on the other side of it: the crash after the high, the sickening realization that they would never let you get away with this, that they wouldn't even care that he hit you first, they never care that the others almost always hit you first, because you probably brought it on yourself by being a freak, so how dare you do everything you can to hold onto a shred of dignity and maybe even make them think twice about laying hands on you again, and they'd lock you away forever, you'd be trapped and under their power, and your only hope of escape was to make yourself disappear before they could catch you.
Maybe now that everything is different, now that Asriel himself is different, he'll be able to understand why you got angry when he asked too often.
"Chara?" It's hard to read the emotion in his distorted, artificial voice. "Chara! It really is you!" The face on the screen changes to an image of his flower form, and the flower smiles giddily. "I thought it looked a little like you! But that was impossible, right? Heh. Like any of this is possible! I want to say 'I'm sorry for attacking you,' but... Well, I can't. Not honestly, anyway. I won't lie to you, Chara. You're the only one who can really understand me! And you forgive me anyway, right? After all, I'm doing this for you. I'm going to destroy humanity, just like you wanted me to. That is still what you want, isn't it? If you changed your mind and want me to make it up to you some other way, I can do that, too! I can do just about anything now! You're still okay after all that, right? I know you're cool and strong and not afraid of pain or anything, but I want to hear you say that you're okay."
"I'm fine, Asriel, thank you. The truth is, this isn't even my body, and I don't feel much physical sensation of any sort when I'm not in control of it." You pick your words carefully, sorting the information you have to convey by both its importance and its ability to pass as innocuous. Frisk is listening, and they are really not going to like what they're about to hear. You want to make sure Asriel can work out what to do even if they take over again before you're ready. "The other human is still in here. They're only letting me out to talk to you because you backed them into a corner, so you've actually been quite helpful. I am very proud of you, Asriel."
"You are? I mean, of course you are. I've done everything right this time. I'm not a weak little crybaby anymore. But I am still your best friend, so let's wreck everything together!"
Uh. Where exactly are you going with this? Frisk wants to know. They're growing increasingly uneasy. You suppose it's time to take the plunge.
"Yes, let's. But first, about this human whose body I've taken: help me destroy their mind, won't you?"
Your whole frame convulses.
"No," Frisk says out loud.
Anger flares within you. That's your voice now. You were just warming up to it. You are going to have it back.
"Chara?" Asriel asks, looking about as concerned as he can with a cartoonish flower's face and an incomprehensible body. "Hey, what's going on?"
You try to answer him. Your mouth doesn't move. You make a few strangled noises deep in your throat, before Frisk clamps down on that too.
You fight back just enough to keep their attention. Then, while they're focusing on your voice, you seize control of your knife-hand and stab yourself in the thigh.
You scream. Frisk screams. For a moment, you're both on the same wavelength. Then they pull back, just a little. Just enough. You guessed right: they really can't handle pain quite as well as you can.
"S-see?" you stammer to Asriel. "They respond to being hurt. Even when we're fifty-fifty, I can take it. They can't."
"Uh," says Asriel, and stares. Apparently, the whole "being less useless" thing is still a work in progress for him.
"You just have to break them," you explain. "Wasn't that already more or less the plan? Killing them over and over until they give up and relinquish their soul? I'll work on them from the inside, and when we're finished, they'll give their soul to me. I think you can do a little better, though. You should really— OW! Shit! What the hell?"
While you were talking, Frisk rallied enough to yank your knife out of their thigh and throw it across the room. Idiot. Don't they know that will just make it bleed more? Though you suppose that might not matter so much in this particular situation.
"Wow. How juvenile. That really is mine, and always has been. If you were trying to annoy me, then congratulations: you did it. Here's your prize." You focus on your hands, forcing them to wrap around your thigh. You dig your fingers deep into the wound and tear the gash wider. The leg, already trembling, buckles suddenly beneath you, and your knee strikes the ground with a jolt. Someone is screaming again. It's probably both of you.
God, this is agony. You haven't felt anything like it since you were alive and under the power of humans. Maybe not even then. This time, though, you're the one with someone else under your power. That's enough to get you through it.
"Stop messing around," you tell Asriel while Frisk tries desperately to stem the flow of blood. You don't resist when they pull off their sweater and wad it up against the gash, though the coarse fiber stings even more than the open air. "Stop letting them have the illusion of being able to fight back. You have to make them understand how helpless they are."
"Uh," Asriel repeats. "Right. Okay. Just so we're clear, you really want me to do everything I can to torture the body you're inside of right now? Because I can definitely do that. I'm not exactly squeamish anymore. But... you're sure you'll be all right? Like, mentally?"
Oh, Asriel. "I haven't been 'all right mentally' for as long as I can remember," you boast. "But yes. Do it. I want to be free. I want to live again. Let's set right what went wrong all those years ago. If you really regret it, then this is your chance for redemption."
A beat after that last word, Asriel's screen turns to static, like he doesn't quite know how to react and is trying to hide it. A part of you wants to keep talking to him, but Frisk has finished binding their wound and turned their attention back to fighting you, and you're running out of ideas for distracting them. Maybe the best way to spur Asriel into action is to disappear and make him chase after you. You let go and allow yourself to sink beneath Frisk's consciousness, the merciful numbness that washes over you as you do so a consolation for your loss of control. Frisk won't get any such reprieve until they're dead.
Too bad for them.