The greatest poisons are slow. The greatest poisons make you feel good. The greatest poisons won’t let you know they are working until you can’t live without them. And then one day you understand you can no longer live because of them.

Chara was one hell of a poison.

Rain was about as powerful and noteworthy as a shadow now. Although sometimes it did feel like that shadow gained a little weight that dragged at Chara’s heels now and then. It didn’t matter though. Chara had assumed nearly full control of their body by now. It was so nice to have a physical form of her own again. It was freeing to be able to walk and talk and think aloud the way she wanted to and not have to worry about what anyone thought about it.

Rain couldn’t do anything to stop her. Her fear and cowardly nature had been rewarded properly. If she was not brave enough to do what needed doing, if she was not strong enough to face things on her own, then she didn’t deserve this precious body.

She would still keep her promise to her of course. Unlike everyone else Chara had ever known, she planned to stay true to her word and bring Rain back up to the surface. They would see the sun again and all their old problems from past lives would go away.

Everything would go away. Finally. At long last. All the sickness burned away to dust and ash. All those people who had lied and abused them, all those simpering monsters who had put on a kind face and had once made Chara- a child- believe that it was her duty to save them at any cost- they would all get what they deserved. They would be known as Rain: the woman who fought monsters and won!

Everyone would get the release, the salvation that they had once banished her with. In the end they would all sleep forever.

But first, she would make them pay.

Chara was making her way through Hotland now. It was an unpleasant place. She wondered if any of the monsters here could appreciate the irony of turning such a large chunk of the Underground into the human definition of the underworld. Fire and brimstone, a black featureless ceiling, a dry unending heat and the rumble of rolling magma- was this not what people thought hell was like?

Her feet crunched against warm gravel. Her hair clung to her glossy face and all of her joints were slick with sweat that stained her ragged clothes. If she had wanted to be practical she could have at least abandoned the black cloak by now but she liked the idea of collecting trophies. Whenever Rain tried to sneak forward and reclaim any semblance of control the reaction those items caused her acted like an alarm bell. Also she simply found them... funny.

She looked up when a tall box shaped building cast its shadow over her. It had the words “LAB” painted on it in big red letters.

Down here they really liked to keep things simple.

She smiled and put her hands on her hips. She was kind of surprised she had made it this far. Rain had been wising up to her and had been starting to fight back near the end of their little adventure in Waterfall. Chara had been worried that she would push her away before she had absorbed enough power to take control.

The whole way here Rain had tried to reason with her. She begged the question of why she was doing all this while she watched Chara use her body to cut down frightened monsters as they tried to run away. Her thoughts continued to echo around in their head like nagging flies even now. It seemed to be all Rain was capable of doing now, whimpering questions over and over again.

“Why. Why? Why!...Why?”

Chara sighed in exasperation. “Because it’s what they deserve. You will understand someday. They never really cared about you. People are only ever nice because they want something from you, my naive little Rainstorm.”

“You…took…everything…”

Chara checked the lab door. It looked like it should have been motion activated but it didn’t move. She tucked her spear behind her back and gave an experimental knock. She wasn’t sure since the walls were so thick but it sounded like there may be someone making noise on the other side.

“Of course I did. Didn’t I just say people only befriend each other because they want something? You don’t have any right to complain really. I only took what you were willing to give to me. I always asked first. I asked you to take me with you. You agreed.” She scowled and knocked again. There could be lots of useful things in this place. Supplies, maybe better clothes, hopefully a more lethal weapon than her stupid little fire poker.

“You…lied… you lied about everything…everyone…didn't you? You have taken away…everything.” She repeated.

“You chose to believe me. You wanted someone to help you. You wanted revenge. The thought made you feel good. Don’t lie, I felt it.” Chara snapped. “And you chose to let me do the things you were too afraid to do because if you looked away you could convince yourself that you were not responsible! So I let you do just that. I let you hide and remain weak while I shouldered your burdens and grew stronger because of them! With each moment of control, I woke up just a little more. With every kill I grew a little stronger. Do you remember what that strange little flower said about LOVE and the world being kill or be killed? He was right. Down here things like LOVE or EXP and HP are all real. And every time I did something for you, those things increased. Not for you, but for me. Now I’m the strong one.” She shook her head and clicked her tongue. “You are just like everyone else. It’s not like I was particularly devious, I literally asked for your soul, you fool.” She laughed to herself and ran a hand over the door. She wondered if she could pry it open. “It’s not my fault that you were shortsighted. I mean, I understand what was going through your mind at that point: what use was your soul to you if you could only ever use it to continue to exist in the nothingness? It’s alright. It was valid reasoning. But now you have to pay the price for that agreement.”

Rain’s presence was fading away now. She didn’t seem to be interested in conversation now that she was being called out. Just as well. Chara was growing bored of talking to her.

She jammed her spear into the little slit in the door and used it to pry it open. It whined and creaked but it had not been locked for whatever reason, so with a little effort and elbow grease she managed to pull the door open just a crack.

She peeked inside. She could have sworn she heard a voice but she didn’t see anyone. She listened for a second longer to assure herself there would be no ambush before she forced her arm through the gap. She began to worm her way inside.

She made a show of dusting herself off and looked around at her prize of a room once she got in. Her face fell and she wrinkled her nose once she got a look at what she had unlocked. “Oh. Well this looks boring.” She had had some vague expectations of something a little more… dramatic?

The air smelled stale. More so than usual. There was a ridiculous pile of old bowls, foam cups and takeout containers stacked like shambling skyscrapers on a nearby table and scattered across the floor. The walls were bland and pristine if not a little off-color in the corners due to age. The floor was equally bland and slightly faded. There was a huge glaring monitor surrounded by lots of smaller ones just to their left.

“Well isn’t that nice. Look Rain, we are on TV.” She spun in place, holding her hands out and allowing her cloak and sleeves to flail out behind her like a fan. She kept her eyes fixed on the screen as she spun. “Look at you! You’re famous!” She leaned in a little closer and saw a series of sticky notes stuck to several of the monitors. Some of the button had been rubbed down with wear.

“Oh. This must be what the fish was talking about.” She flipped through a few of the options. Camera feeds from Snowdin, Waterfall, Hotland and other various places flashed by. “Ugh. Well this is annoying. I bet they have evacuated a bunch of people by now.” She stuck a finger in a precariously placed yellow tea cup and to her disappointment the tea was cold. Great. Maybe she should have taken Undyne’s words a little more seriously and not wasted any time. She was not sure exactly how strong she would need to be by the time she reached Asgore, so every monster that managed to escape was a possible complication.

At least he hadn’t absorbed the six souls yet. Maybe he wanted to wait until everyone was out of the area before he unleashed that kind of power? Maybe he was afraid of the possibilities and was dragging his feet. Whatever the reason, she knew he had not absorbed them. If he had she would have been able to tell. At least she hoped she would be able too.

She began to rummage through the scattered chicken scratch notes scattered across the room. The Underground had a finite amount of space. The barrier boxed them in in all directions. At the end of the day every hallway, nook and cranny was just another dead end. So that meant that somewhere out there, there was a dark little nook crammed full of weak, cowering monsters with their backs against the wall. So much XP and LOVE could be gained in one sitting if she could only find them. She wanted that power. She needed that power. She needed to prove to herself that she could do it.

She cursed and knocked a few bowls over into the already existing mess on the floor. She wasn’t seeing anything. Did she dare waste time watching the camera feeds for some kind of hint? It was just now dawning on her that silly ol’ father may actually have the power to ruin all her hard work if she didn’t reach him fast enough.

Beyond the literal wall of old food and utensils, something moved just out of the corner of her eye. Without even thinking she threw one of the ceramic bowls at it. It arced across the room and shattered against the corner of a vending machine, sending a spray of old noodles bits and room temperature broth in every direction. Her other hand darted down to take hold of her trusty spear.

For a brief second she felt really stupid, because at first glance it looked like she really had just panicked and hit a vending machine.

But then it moved again. A hand came up to flick a goopy noddle away from its screen. “Ah, I see you finally managed to notice me- now, now, there is no need for that, you ugly little creature.” The talking box held up its hands but did not try to back away when Chara moved as if to throw something else at him. A pixelated smiley face assembled itself on its screen and mocked her with a chortle. “You have already made quite a name for yourself out there, no need to drive the point home even more. You’re dangerous and out for dust- we get it.”

He wiped off a few more bits of food and put a hand where his hips would be if he had been anything other than a gaudy metal rectangle. His other hand made a gesture like that of one holding his chin it thought- resting right below his screen because –again- he was literally just a blinking rectangle with a stupid amount of buttons and dials on him. He seemed oblivious to Chara’s cocked brow and annoyed expression and continued to carry on with his speech in an overly loud and dramatic voice. “Such infamy! I am impressed.” He applauded. She was not sure if robots were capable of sarcasm but if he wasn’t, he was still unintentionally dripping with it. He gestured to the screen behind her, which still portrayed her likeness. “I don’t think anyone has ever managed to upstage my prime time viewer numbers until you came along. Now everyone only has eyes for the live feeds.”

“What the hell are you supposed to be?” She snorted, talking over the top of his speech. She found his voice grating. It was like she had stepped onto the stage of a campy game show. “Some sort of automatic defense system for the lab?”

He chortled. “You could say that. Those abilities are certainly within my programming.”

Chara began to stalk the room in a wide arc, always keeping her spear hand on the same side as the robot. A strange little scuffling sound caught her attention. Her eyes darted towards a set of moving stairs. Was there someone up there?

The robot seemed to notice where she was looking. “Ah, if you are looking for Dr. Alphys, she’s not here. While you were busy doing your, ah, thing, she was running around evacuating people and leading them to safety. Now they are in a place where you will never get to them.”

Alright. Someone had programmed this thing to be a cocky little shit.

She was trying to inch a little closer to him, trying to find a blind spot to strike at. But he continued to turn in place on his one stupid wheel so that no matter where she went, that mocking digital face continued to watch her.

“Deciding not to fight you…” he put his hands on his sides and sighed, “My, my, she really is the only smart one around here, isn’t she?”

Her hidden weapon slipped out of her sleeve a little. He noticed it at once and inched back a little. “Oh? How sassy! You are just itching to get your hands on me, aren’t you?” That digital face winked at her.

“Oh for god’s sake just shut up!” Pushed over the edge by his constant teasing lines she hurled the spear at him. It made an audible thunk as it bounced off his side, clattering to the ground a few feet away. Now he had an ugly dent in his smug rectangular side.

She didn’t seem to notice the muffled gasp that came from the door next to the stairs. She was too focused on Mettaton, who had turned on a dime and was moving towards the back door now that he had successfully goaded her into a violent form of tunnel vision.

Chara cursed and sprang into motion. She wasn’t sure if she could damage the thing but if it wasn’t going to fight then that meant it was probably planning to run off and tell someone who could give her trouble.

“Get back here, you gaudy excuse for an Ipod!” She ran after him, boots scraping and squeaking against the smooth tiles as she snatched her spear up off the floor. He was making a dash towards the stairs. Maybe someone really was lying in wait over there.

With a little annoyed snarl she gained on him and lunged.

With a loud squeak that one annoying wheel of his reversed directions. One of his corners scraped against the wall with a nails-on-chalkboard screech that sent a shower of sparks up into the air. His whole body wobbled a bit in an attempt to keep his balance but he pulled through.

Taken by surprise but how agile he could be, Chara missed her mark and tumbled off course. Her shoulder slammed into the wall. In her attempt to keep herself from falling over she took a clumsy step forward, swiping at a fleeing Mettaton with her spear and leaving a little white scrape on his back.

In her frenzied lust for violence she stumbled forward without realizing where she was going. She smashed her toes into the railing of the staircase and fell head over heels onto the moving escalator.

“Ow- fuck!” She went tumbling head over heels in an ungraceful, perpetual display of flailing limbs. She spent several painful seconds caught falling down the up escalator before she managed to free herself from her graceless floundering.

“Get back here you fucking trashcan!” She shrieked, pushing herself up onto shaky knees and hobbling after him. Despite having his back turned to her Mettaton knew what had happened and was laughing. “Sorry darling!” He called over his shoulder, “This world needs stars more than it needs corpses! Toodles!”

Chara limped after him, leaving a trail of shrieking curses in her wake. She could feel Rain stirring inside her, laughing at her and sending her images of them suck inside a dryer, tumbling head over heels amidst a collection of underwear.

“Oh, you think this is funny?”

“Yes.”

She dove deep inside their mind and ensnared Rain in a net of seething shadow and dragged her kicking and screaming up to the front of her mind. She didn’t give her any control but she had a trick she wanted to try.

Rain’s presence gasped and recoiled. Chara made sure her awareness was resting just under their skin, a buffer between Chara and the pain. “Not so funny now, is it?” She snapped. She wiped a trickle of blood from her lip and glared out the door. The metal box was making good time on that one little wheel of his.

She broke into a run. Rain groaned and tried to shrink back but Chara wouldn’t let her. “If you don’t like it, then heal us.” She ordered, tearing out of the lab and running down the warm, red sand path. Maybe she could still catch up to him. He had to be important somehow, so she wanted him dead.

If she couldn’t hurt him then she would just kick his wheel out from under him and toss him over the edge into the lava. Just thinking about it made her feel a little better.

Mettaton continued to lead her away from the lab, making sure to stay just close enough to continue to encourage the chase until the building was out of sight.

Chara remained blessedly oblivious to the little crack in the fake bathroom door that had closed behind her as she left. She never heard Alphys bringing the elevator back online or her whispered prayers of mercy for her friend as she descended into the darkness far below their running feet.