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Clover sits next to Chara by the side of the cliff, looking out over the Dunes, at the light of the Swelterstone.
"Do you see it?" Chara asks. "New Home, in the far distance. That is where King Asgore resides."
Clover nods. They can't see it out in the distance; maybe Chara has a sharper eye.
"What do you plan to do, when you get there?" they ask.
Clover bites their lip. What do they plan to do?
"All of those humans..." Chara taps a finger on their chin. "They are gone. I'm sure you figured that out. You're not unintelligent."
"What about you?" they ask.
"Me?" Chara furrows their brows.
"You’re human, aren't you?"
"No," Chara answers, "I'm not. Though I do suppose that would make things easier, wouldn't it? With you and myself, we'd have seven human SOULs, and monsterkind could be freed. But no, it isn't that simple."
Clover reaches for Chara's hand, and feels for the pulse on their wrist.
"Aren't you?" they repeat.
Chara stands up, yanking their hand from Clover's grasp. "No. And that is my answer. I suggest you figure out your own."
"Howdy!"
Chara's tone and smile are bright, but their eyes look empty. It's weird. Clover shifts on their feet.
"Jeez, relax," they say. "But are you sure you really wanna stick around here? Staying hidden isn't exactly easy for me. And I'd probably be treated the same as you if I got caught."
They sound...different. "What’s wrong?"
Chara lets out a long sigh. "I know you'll probably love this place, but don't forget. You do wanna go home, right?"
The thing is: Clover doesn't want to go home. Not really.
But they nod anyway, and when Chara offers them a hand to SAVE, Clover takes it.
Something in Chara's expression changes. "I will try my best to stay here, but I may have to change my hiding spot. I'll be in the Wild East regardless, though.
Clover nods.
"Well, well, well."
Clover turns around to see Chara approaching them from behind.
"Look at who's abandoned you now," they say.
Not Chara. Never Chara.
Chara grabs Clover's hand. "You can make all monsters into your friends now if you want," they say. "You can try to change. Atone for what you did in the Ruins. But I know. And I'd be your friend no matter what. Not like them." Chara walks up to the keypad, and taps a code in. "Let’s go."
The door slams shut behind them. Can't go back now.
On the rooftop with Martlet. She's offering to forgive them.
Clover doesn't want to go home.
They shake hands with Martlet, and a knife flies into her chest.
"Hello."
Clover has never seen this human before. And they thought they knew everyone who fell in the mountain. They scramble for their poster. It must have gotten lost in the fall.
They recite the names to themself. Dove. Dexter. Melody. Two more. Clover can't recall.
"My name is Chara," they say. "And I have an ability that can help you." They open their hand, and in their palm is a star, flickering bright. "If any horrible fate were to befall you, I have the ability to reverse it. In exchange, however, I would like to accompany you on your own journey through the Underground. I can guide you to King Asgore, but-- well. I need a way out of these Ruins, first."
"Asgore?"
"The ruler of all monsters." They pause. "And the reason none of the children you search for have ever come home. Do we have a deal?"
They stretch out a hand to Clover. Clover shakes it, and they SAVE for the first time.
"Well." Chara stares at their door out of the Ruins. They hold out their right hand, and a very large knife forms in their hand, glowing white like a bullet from battle. They swing it at the door, and the boards holding it shut fall apart. "There we go." They brush non-existent dust off their hands. "Shall we?"
Clover takes the extended hand, and feels the brief sensation of a SAVE. They walk out of the Ruins together.
"That was a pretty nasty fall." Chara peers over them. Their eyes are blank. "Need a hand?" Chara steps around to offer a hand to Clover.
"How?" Clover asks.
"Mail Whale," Chara answers. "Of course, the nearest UGPS station is pretty far from here, but when I realized you wouldn't be making Waterfall, I came as soon as I could."
Good enough. Clover takes their hand, and Chara pulls them up. They feel the healing power of the SAVE wash over them.
"I told you that birdbrain was incompetent," they continue. "Just look at where you are now! She's completely abandoned you. And look who was there for you. Me." They smile.
Clover doesn't say anything in return. They're acting weird.
"Good duel," Chara says with an empty smile. "But it doesn't seem like you'll be able to really show your face 'round these parts again."
Clover hides their face under their hat. They aren't happy about killing Starlo. Not at all.
"You did what you had to do, buddy." They tap Clover's back. "No matter what path you'll take, I'll always be on your side."
It still feels wrong.
"I'm glad I made it in time," Chara says. A glowing knife is in their hand. They dismiss it in a puff. "I know you usually prefer to handle things yourself...but you truly seemed as though you had your back to the wall."
"Thank you," Clover says.
"Let’s go," they say. "Before the robot comes back."
"I really must congratulate you," Chara says. "You haven't died once throughout our journey. Honestly, you're making me feel like I'm not useful."
"Really?" Clover probably wouldn't have survived after that fall if it wasn't for them.
"I don't need your reassurances, Clover. In fact...I have a gift for you. Something to secure our bond as partners."
They deposit something in Clover's hands.
* Cacao Ammo - Weapon AT 11
* A token of the bond between you and your partner.
Clover loads the beans into their gun.
"These beans are used to make chocolate, but I've also enhanced them with a touch of magic. You'll need all the help you can get if you're going to face the king."
Clover tucks the gun into their holster, and turns away from Chara.
"I should have known you'd fight this," Chara says.
Clover blinks. What happened?
"I suppose this means we'll have to show our cards. We'll start at the beginning."
We? Clover...doesn't have any body parts. No mouth to protest.
"Howdy," a new voice says. "I'm Asriel. And I'm Chara's best friend."
Huh?
"You've talked to me a few times, too," he continues. "We tried to avoid telling you. Chara thought it might confuse you to introduce me."
When Chara acts strangely, when the light in their eyes has gone out -- this is who's been there. This whole time.
Clover trembles with rage.
"Let’s start at the beginning." Chara snaps their fingers and a spotlight shines down on Clover. They're on a stage. Asriel is in the audience, and Chara is just off-stage. "SCENE: You jumped into Mt. Ebott, wide-eyed and bright, carrying that poster in your hand."
Clover reaches into their pocket. Sure enough, the poster is there. They're more real than they were earlier. The poster isn't the one that they made.
"Enter TORIEL. She is kind, of course. She always has been."
A sepia-toned copy of the goat lady from the Ruins walks on stage.
"She takes you into your care."
She grabs Clover's arm, and the poster falls to the ground.
"And you are happy. Happy enough to forget your mission. But we are not."
Chara strolls out on the stage.
"So I RESET."
Clover is back in the middle of the stage. The poster is in their hand again.
"And this time, I spoke to you. I became the snake to you here," Chara says. They step out onto the stage. "And so you fought Toriel."
Clover's gun is out. It's the gun they brought to the mountain, not Starlo's revolver. They want to throw up. Starlo gave it to them, and they repaid him by killing him with it. But they don't even have it anymore. Instead, they have Chara's replica of that toy, and they're holding it to Toriel's head.
She gets up, and she sidesteps Clover, leaving them to open the door.
"But it didn't stop there, of course. You faced a great deal of peril throughout your journey."
Chara makes a gesture with their hand, and the scene changes to a part of Snowdin that Clover's never seen.
And then a spear of ice pierces their back.
"We did our best, of course, but it wasn't enough." They snap their fingers. A new backdrop falls. Waterfall. A sepia-toned monster in armor is chasing Clover. They have a spear. It pierces Clover again. "You kept dying."
Another backdrop falls. Hotland. A set of lasers freezes them in place.
"Asriel came up with the idea," Chara says. "He suggested diverting your path, placing you somewhere else in the Ruins."
The backdrop changes again. Chara snaps their fingers again, and Clover is yanked off-stage. Chara approaches the switch on the backdrop. "I tampered with the switch...and here we are."
The stage is dismissed.
"The task we gave you should've been pretty easy," Asriel says. Clover can see the vacant expressions he used to put on Chara. "Go to Asgore. We tried to motivate you."
"But you're complacent." Chara steps closer to Clover. "I once asked you what you would do when you got home -- but you aren't interested in going home. I can't believe I didn't figure it out before. It's why it's time for us to take matters into our own hands. We'll take your SOUL, and storm Asgore's castle ourselves."
Clover reaches for their gun. They try to point it at Chara.
"No," they say, "I won't allow that. This isn't a duel, Clover. This isn't a fair fight. You've already lost."
The gun falls from their hand. And then the battle begins.
It's a garden of golden flowers. Like the ones Clover fell onto.
Clover walks.
As they walk, the flowers behind them start to wilt.
In the center of the field are two corpses.
As Clover steps towards them, they blend into one.
"We really are here again," Asriel says. "You do the same thing every time, Chara."
"Yes, yes, I'm quite aware. Insanity is defined by doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. But I'm not the one doing the same thing over and over, am I?" They turn towards Clover. "I...know your memory is reset every time we do this. But...you do remember something, at least. I've noticed. You do things faster. You don't loiter in locations the same way. Like you've already seen everything you want to see the first time. But you couldn't remember. You can't. It's impossible. And yet...it is the only conclusion I can draw. So I'll keep resetting. Until our path ends somewhere else."
"Where do you think it'll go?" Asriel asks.
"Hopefully, a path that will get us all what we want."
"Sorry, what's your name again?" Chara asks. They grimace. "It's not...Gunhat. Surely not."
"Clover," they answer.
They snap their fingers. "Precisely. Thank you."
Clover holds out their hand.
"Ah...nice to meet you?" Chara furrows their brows. "We already know each other."
Clover glares.
"Ah. Right. A SAVE. Yes." Chara grabs their hand and SAVEs.
"Impressive," Chara says. "Quite the battle, wasn't it? But you handled it well. Especially considering the new weapon you picked up." They smile. "But you can deal with anything I throw at you, can't you?"
Clover narrows their eyes. They put their left hand on their holster, and extend their right towards Chara.
Instead of making a SAVE, Chara deposits ammunition in their hands.
"For the road ahead," they say, closing their hands around Clover's. "You'll need it if you want to take down the king."
Attack is 11. Higher than the ammo they have now. Fine. They load their gun.
"I hope you understand, Clover." Chara smiles. "We're partners. We always have been. And partners trust each other. So I'm giving this as a token of my trust. My faith in you to finish the job."
Partners trust each other? That's rich.
Clover takes the lead.
Clover takes out their gun. Raises it to Chara's head.
"You want me to do something about the door," Chara says. "What, do you expect me to just say 'open sesame!' and the door will open?"
Clover doesn't falter. They hold the revolver to their "partner"'s head. They'll fire it, if they really want to.
Chara stalks down the left corridor. "Wait here."
"I was forced to exterminate that human."
And in all of their rage and fury--
Clover remembers. Time after time after time. Death after death after death. All for what? For nothing? No.
They won't let this be for nothing.
The robot is obliterated. It falls to pieces.
Clover has all the power they need. But power isn't what they want.
The enemy will face justice.
"Are we going to talk about that?" Chara asks, on the elevator to Hotland.
Save it, Clover wants to say. I know everything about you. I know Asriel. You said we were partners. You said you trusted me.
But words aren't enough.
"I suppose you've never been a person of many words," Chara continues. "At the very least, you still have to face Asgore. And you have that new ability now. It'll be easy work to beat him. And then we'll be done here. You want that, don't you?"
"Shut up," Clover mutters.
"If you insist," Chara answers.
The rest of the elevator ride is silent. Good.
But there's still enemies remaining before they can face the king.
"This is what you get when you defenestrate subtlety," Chara says, looking around Hotland. Clover doesn't care. They look at Chara's face. It's Asriel. "I bet the castle has way more security now. Then again, you probably don't think that's a problem."
Clover glares at him. They stick out their hand. Appearances are important. Clover can't let either of them figure out that Clover knows.
"Fine." Asriel takes their hand. A SAVE is made.
"Clover," says Chara, stepping in the puddle where Martlet once stood, "can we drop the charade?"
Clover turns their gun on Chara.
"I have no intention of getting in your way," Chara says. "Partners are supposed to trust each other. But tell me the answer, Clover: we aren't partners, are we? We never were."
"No," Clover agrees.
"Uneven terms," Chara agrees. "It's true. I never trusted you properly. We could consider this a breach of contract, but the conditions of our deal have been met. The initial ones, at least. Not the secret ones I wanted."
Clover flips the safety off. "What were they?"
"Same as you. The SOULs." Chara looks directly into Clover's eyes. "If I can ask anything of you, Clover...I ask you to spare our lives."
Clover pulls the trigger.
Rewind.
"I guess that's a no," Chara says, and a knife materializes in their right hand. They throw it at Clover.
Rewind.
A whole circle of knives.
Rewind.
Bean-shaped pellets.
Rewind.
Clover fires again.
Rewind.
"I shouldn't have brought a knife to a gunfight," Chara says, flipping the knife in their hand. "Well, I have nothing left to lose. You are the most self-righteous person I have ever met. You want to be a 'hero of justice', but you always abandon that the first chance you get. You aren't fair. We might both be murderers, but at least I don't pretend that I'm doing the right thing!"
Six bullets. Clover fires the first.
"I hated every second of pretending to be your partner," Chara continues. "Cheering you on while you murdered monsters just to fuel your own hate. I can't stand you."
Two.
Chara winces. "Have you never thought of humanity's sins? Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, all of us deserved it?"
Three. Four. Five.
"I hope when you get their SOULs they never forgive you," Chara hisses.
Six.
Chara's corpse falls atop the puddle.
Clover sits atop a cliff, revolver dangling from their hand.
"I hope when you get their SOULs they never forgive you."
Some of them won't. Aster and Arachne are both stubborn in their refusal, and unhappy to have been with Clover. They're the two whose names Clover forgot. According to Arachne, it's because they both changed theirs later on. Clover never bothered coming up with a new name for themself. But it shows how much Clover never really knew about them. About any of the others.
"Did you ever think that maybe, just maybe, all of us deserved it?"
Chara wasn't human. At least, that's what they said every time Clover asked.
But maybe they were, sometime before they met Clover. And Clover had never heard of Chara.
It could have been Chara's revenge too. But for whatever reason, they didn't want that.
Was it wrong? No. What the monsters did was wrong.
But Clover knows everything now. They know what Chara wanted from them -- what they wanted from Clover all along. Chara was never looking out for them.
And yet, their final words still linger in Clover's mind.
Clover can't enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done. Because Chara was also a missing kid, and Clover couldn't save them.
Clover raises their gun and fires a shot.
One more time.
"Howdy," Chara says, waving. "I'm Chara."
"No, you're not," Clover says.
"No, I'm not," Asriel agrees. "But how do you know that?"
Clover waits.
Chara's posture shifts, just slightly.
"I want to hear it myself," they say. "This is between the two of us, isn't it?"
Clover unholsters their gun and points it at Chara.
"You don't seriously intend to shoot, do you?" Chara asks. "This is a demonstration. You killed us. And when you gained control, you remembered. So you know everything. Why did you come back?"
Clover doesn't answer. They put away their gun, and offer their hand to Chara.
Chara narrows their eyes. "I see. You still need me now. Because you restored this."
Clover stares at them and waits.
"I'll see you down the line," Chara says, shaking Clover's hand.
At the top of the cliff, Chara asks them a new question. "Do you really think Asgore will spare you, just because you're acting like a good person? There's no such thing as a good human. Not to us."
"Us?" Clover looks over at them. They already know.
"Of course." Chara frowns. "Surely I've disabused you of the notion that I'm human."
"Was," Clover corrects.
Their face darkens. "Well. That is true. But I'm not one anymore. And I'm grateful for that. You'd probably never understand that. You love humanity."
"It's not like that," Clover responds.
"Well," Chara says, looking at the castle, "no matter what you really think, you have to answer eventually. I think you already know. You're just scared of saying it."
Chara is sitting on the railing of the catwalk, dangling their legs over the ground.
"Do you really trust Ceroba?" they ask.
Clover shrugs.
"It's going to be harder for me to find opportunities to save for you, you know," Chara says. "Do you think I enjoy being your stalker? That I actually like having to follow you around? When I noticed that bird's raft wasn't going where it was supposed to, I had to scramble to make sure I got to you on time."
"Martlet," Clover corrects.
Something in Chara's expression shifts. "Yes, that's right. She was pretty attached to you...but I suppose our duties come first to us, don't they?"
Clover looks away. They're not so sure it does.
Chara is pushing them to the same answer as before. But...that's not the answer Clover wants.
"At any rate...I really do hope she makes good on her word," Chara says. "But be prepared for the worst. You never know what might be ahead of you." They extend their hand. Clover takes it. Another SAVE.
"So." Chara approaches them, just outside the Ketsukane manor. "Just what was in there that was so bad?"
Clover grabs Chara's hand and drags them to the basement.
"So that's what she wants," Chara says, staring at the blank screen. "I can understand that. It's a nobler goal than the cowboy's, at least. But nobility isn't enough. It's the same thing with Asgore. He doesn’t truly have a plan for after the Barrier breaks. He regrets having said that in the first place. I think it's cruel. He made a promise he was never capable of keeping."
Clover doesn't have an answer. It's been the dilemma weighing on their mind, this whole time. They don't know what they're going to do at the end of it all.
"But you'd know a lot about making promises you couldn't keep, don't you?" Chara asks, idly. They're not saying it to be cruel. "You can't really save them."
"Would you?"
Chara scoffs. "I don't care about them, and I care even less about your quest for 'justice'. They were probably all awful people. I suppose those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, but...well, all you need to know is that I've never cared much for others."
"Asriel?"
"One of the few exceptions," Chara answers. "I always liked to imagine we were two parts of the same SOUL. Now we are." Their expression implies things are more complicated than that.
Me? Clover doesn't ask it. But. But they definitely think about asking.
"You should go," Chara says. "Before you run out of time."
They can hear Chara's footsteps on the roof. Dying is weird. They're not dead yet, even though the essence of their being has been separated from them.
"So this is the end, huh?" Chara sits down next to them. "Your final resting place. You picked a nice place to die. Though, if this was going to be the outcome...why did you choose to return?"
"Because...you're human too," Clover weakly whispers.
Chara frowns. "I should have known it was sentiment. You've always been the same. But we know better now. They can't be saved, and neither can I."
"Is that...really true?" Clover manages to croak out.
"I'd ask what you meant, but I don't suppose you're in a position to answer," Chara says. They hum, thinking for a bit. "You have changed. This wouldn't be your answer otherwise. I might not agree with it, but...this isn't the worst possible outcome. It just means I have to try again. Asriel and I have to rethink our strategy. In the end, you really weren't the one that we needed. But...we had a good run. Goodbye, Clover. Rest well."
And Chara gets up, taking the warmth with them.
Clover's so cold.
Rest...that doesn't sound so bad.
They close their eyes and sleep.