Start of Arc 2: What we are made of

Usually when Chara reset things and pulled them back to a save point, they fell towards their body at a blinding speed and then abruptly stopped without any sort of physical impact. That was not the case this time. This time they really did fall and they fell hard.

The unforgiving ground raced up to embrace her, rocks jabbing into her ribs and the wind forced out of her lungs with a loud Oof! Her clothes were stained with a cold damp dew and the ground beneath her smelled of flowers and fresh earth. Everything hurt. It ached and throbbed but most of her injuries felt like nothing more than the stage-setting for a nasty bruise. Their time with Sans had given them both a knack for speedy healing so it was nothing to worry about. The worst of it was already healing, the familiar if not entirely comfortable sensation bringing quick relief to the worst of the fall damage.

At long last Rain was able to open her eyes. She blinked several times, chasing away the blur and revealing a familiar cavernous setting filled with crumbling ruins, massive looming stalactites and a bed of yellow flowers. The distant chirps of birds echoed against the furthest cavern walls.

Her mouth fell open in disbelief. She was still dreaming. She had to be.

She bit the side of her cheek, the pain assuring her of what the fall should have already made obvious: this was not a dream. She was back at the start. She was back at the very beginning. Was that even possible? How was that possible?

She ran her hands over her face, feeling her own eyelashes brush up against her palms. She felt warm tears touch her skin.

Raindrops fell upon her head, soft and cool. She looked up, droplets touching her teeth as she continued to gape up at the hole in the stone-set sky.

Rain. Real rain!

She cradled herself, hand over her mouth as she laughed, sobbed, then laughed again.

She was back! She was back! All of those things, all of those horrible, hellish things, they had not happened!

Had they?

A dream. Maybe it had all been a dream. A horrible, god-awful dream. Maybe she had just been lying here this whole time. God, she really hoped so. She would give anything to convince herself that was true.

She looked around, shivering against the damp cold. She moved to tug her cloak around her a little tighter but it wasn’t there. She looked down in realization. Everything was gone. The torn black cloak, the spear, the eyepatch, those gut-wrenching flame colored boots caked in dust- all of it was gone.

Instead she was wearing her dark red hoodie and sneakers again, their laces undone. The holes in her clothes were gone too.

“Thank you. Oh god, thank you.” She breathed, rocking back and forth, flexing her sore muscles, opening and closing her hands. She could move again! She could speak!

She had just awoken form a horrible nightmare. Her mind still reeled at the thought.

...Had it all been real?

No. No of course not. Monsters? Souls? Time travel? Ridiculous!

Her beaming smile fell away. Then again, had she not just healed her own wounds without even thinking about it?

Her stomach dropped out from under her in a sudden jolt of fear. If she had gone this far back, did that mean that Chara was still there? Or had they not made their deal yet?

She dove into the back of her own mind to check, hands gripping at the folds of her hoodie as if holding onto something would keep Chara from dragging her away again if she was still there.

She felt it right away: that telltale thick, rolling darkness. The moment her presence touched it she leaped away again in alarm.

Chara awakened inside of her, springing forward like a striking snake. Grabbing onto her and dragging her kicking and screaming back into the darkness.

“No! No! I won’t go back! You can’t have my soul! Not this time! I won’t give it to you!”

“You already did, Rain. Just because we have gone all the way back doesn’t mean that the other timeline didn’t happen. You made a deal. You made a promise. We are going to go and see the sun. We are going to do things right this time.”

She screamed, doubling over with her face in the dirt as she struggled against the rising shadow; those smothering tendrils that pulled her away from her own eyes like some many-limbed creature, dragging her into the depths of her own dark ocean of thought.

Something in the flowers stirred.

Both Rain and Chara froze, Chara still pressing her ethereal weight down on top of her as if to smother her.

A single flower arose from the golden bed. Its petals were larger and deeper in color than all the rest. Its long stem pushed its head higher and higher until it could see above its counterparts. Its foliage bobbed a little as it gently swung its head this way and that, looking around as if curious about how it had gotten there.

Rain opened her mouth and found herself choking on nothing. Chara shoved her away like she always did.

The sound of their struggle caused Flowey to turn to face them at last. The friendly guise of his pale smiling face twitched for a brief moment. He blinked, looking side to side with a little frown. Then he shook himself, droplets of water flying from his petals. “Howdy!” He chimed. “I’m Flowey. Flowey the Flower. You are new to the Underground-” he frowned a little, “right?”

So they had managed to go so far back that even Flowey had forgotten them.

Chara pulled them to their feet and step forward, acting apprehensive. “Yes. I am. What’s going on? Where am I?”

He shook off any of his previous lingering doubts at the sight of Chara's feigned confusion and gave them a big cheery smile. “Oh, golly! Then you must be so confused! You need someone to show you how things work down here.” He bobbed to the left then the right in a fluffy act of looking to see if anyone else would step forward to volunteer. “I guess lil ol me will have to do!” He said with a wink.

Chara inched a little closer, dabbing at her eyes like she was trying to hold back tears. “I’m so scared Asr-Flowey! I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Well come here you big silly and let me show you the ropes!”

Like a flash flood of defiance Rain rose up in rebellion, her soul rolling like the boiling rapids of a river. Their mouth fell open as the two souls fought for control, emitting a strange croak as they swooned forward a step, causing Flowey to blink and hesitate in his already known lines.

“Asriel!” Rain shouted, choking on her words as she forced them out. “Run! Chara will ki-”

Chara gagged her. “Shut up!”

Flowy shrank away, confused. “C-Chara?” He peeped, some strange memory coming back to him.

“Run Asriel! Run! She’s going to kill you! She already has!” While Rain’s voice begged him to flee, her body dove for him, fingers grasping at his stem and trying to tear him from the ground.

He wove out of the way, terror and realization painting his face with shock. He slipped into the ground.

Between her body’s own frustrated screams she continued to shout her warning. “Warn Sans! Warn Sans! Tell them all to evac-” She choked. She felt a strange pain in her chest and then darkness began to eat away at her vision.

She was falling again. This time the trip lasted less than a second.

She hurt. Her whole body hurt.

Her flesh began to mend.

She opened her eyes. She was lying in the dirt again. Rain was falling overhead.

Chara barreled up from the depths of their existence and took control.

A flower in a nearby flower bed was rising up above all the others...

The sudden unexpected reset made Rain’s mind swim in confusion. Their eyes rolled around in their head. Chara muttered a curse under her breath and wobbled forward, knees sporadically giving out every few steps.

The flower twitched around, hearing their clumsy footsteps. “H-Howdy?”

Rain staged her rebellion once more. In their disoriented state it was easier to assume control but also easier to lose it. “Asriel, its Chara! Run and find help! She won’t forgive you! She wants to kill you!”

Chara dove at him again; frustrated screams making their throat go raw. She tore off leaves and petals but ultimately lost her prey. “No!” She snarled.

A cold pain in their chest.

The world was going dark.

They were falling.

Flesh was mending…

The smell of wet earth.

It was raining…

“Uhhh?” Flowey croaked, head hanging low over the other flowers.

Rain’s stomach churned. The rapid resets pulling them back to a beginning which took place mere seconds ago plus the falling sensation and the disorientation made it feel like the room was spinning.

“Chara- is going to- kill you.” Rain panted.

Chara lurched in his general direction but he was already gone. Instead she found herself staggering off to the side and propping herself up against a boulder as she doubled over. Their stomach lurched, the disorienting movements and dizzying confusion was enough to cause the last, long forgotten human-made meal they had eaten above ground to state its displeasure with their shenanigans. The threw up in the grass while the world continued to tilt and spin.

“Quit doing that.” Chara ordered, wiping their mouth on their sleeve.

Pain.

Darkness.

Falling.

Healing.

Rain.

They immediately threw up- then continued to dry heave because the thought of throwing up the same breakfast granola twice was fucking weird.

If Flowey was there waiting for them this time, they didn’t see him.

“She’ll kill you! She’ll kill everyone!” Rain warned, wiping at her mouth and rising to shaky legs. She stood there, knees wobbling as she leaned against the nearest boulder for support.

“Oh save it!” Chara sighed with impatience. “He’s already gone.”

Rain waited for the darkness. She screwed her eyes shut against the anticipation of falling again but nothing happened.

Chara was taking a moment to compose herself.

Rain wanted to run screaming into the darkness and take them as far away from the rest of the world as she could but every path, every cavern, every room would eventually lead her to a dead end or to the home of some unsuspecting monster.

“That’s right.” Chara finally yanked away her control. “Nowhere to go but up.”

All these resets and jumbled memories of fights that had not “happened” yet left Rain feeling drained and weak. She allowed herself to be tossed aside. Flowey had escaped. She had won this battle and she would take that victory like a drowning man grasping at straws. Now it was time to rest and catch her breath.

She couldn’t win everything. Not all at once. Chara was still there and between the two of them her willpower seemed to be the strongest. But all those things that they had done before, they were gone. Erased. Reset. Everyone was still alive. The idea brought both dread and relief to Rain. She was already so tired. She just wanted to close her eyes and rest. She wanted to give up. But maybe, just maybe, she could find the strength inside herself to fight just a little bit longer now.

What was it that Daniel had been trying to tell her? What weakness did Chara have for her to find? The idea seemed to be lurking just beyond the edge of thought.

She needed time to think.

Those stats Chara had boasted of before, those sickening terms she used to describe life like a game: LV and EXP, those things must have been reset. That impassable wall of power she had used to wall Rain in with was gone. Of course Chara still wasn't a force to scoff at now that she had been fully awakened but maybe somehow Rain could find a way to…?

She closed her eyes. To what? She didn’t know. Could she really make Chara give up somehow? Sans couldn’t get her to do it and unlike her he had actually known what the hell he was doing.

She needed to rest. She would need her strength for later. She needed to think. The other souls had known something. Something important enough to cause Chara to run all the way back to the beginning to escape them.

While Rain fell into silent thought, their journey continued.

She knew couldn’t save them all. Hell, maybe she couldn’t save any of them. But it was worth a try. Daniel was still out there somewhere. He had tried to help her. The other souls had given her a second chance. They wanted her to fight.

She wished they didn’t. She wished she could just say she had tried and then throw in the towel and fall asleep. But if Daniel believed she could do it then she would try.

She would frustrate Chara. Ruin her plans and warn as many powerful people as possible of her coming. She would find ways to stall her so more people could evacuate.

She would do things differently this time.

Rain sank deeper into the darkness to recuperate, keeping one eye half open so that she could track their movements as their journey began anew.

The internal guerrilla warfare was about to begin.

***

“Just how we left it. Feels kind of weird knowing she’s in there.” Chara quipped, walking around the thick branches of the half dead tree out in front of Toriel’s house. She kept her hands tucked away in the pockets of their hoodie as she meandered. Now that she could remember the path properly it had taken them far less time to find their way through the catacombs this time around.

“Thank god I don’t have to listen to you two talk this time. Hmm, should we knock? I kind of feel like we are supposed to knock. Or would that just be weird since I was her kid?” She shrugged. “Oh well. Guess it doesn’t really matter. In we go!”

Toriel had left the door unlocked. It swung open without a sound. The smell of something burning filled the air.

“Oh Toriel!” She sung, slipping inside and closing the door behind her. “Are you there? It’s me, Chara: back from the dead.”

The house was still. All the lights were on and there was a faint haze of smoke in the room. It made her eyes itch as she tried to wave it away to no avail.

She drummed her fingers against the nearby guardrail before moving on to explore the rest of the house. “Guess she’s late today.” They had arrived much sooner this time. They were days ahead of their old schedule so they didn’t really know what to expect as far as routine went.

In the other room the glowing embers of the fire sat nestled in their own ashes, fading in and out like old Christmas lights. There was a little metal tray in the fireplace with the charred remains of a smoking pie still on it.

She frowned. How unlike mother to forget she had something in the oven. She wrinkled her nose at all the burnt gummy bits of snail and wondered with no small degree of annoyance if perhaps Asriel had heard Rain’s warnings after all and had taken them to heart.

She went to go collect her fire poker. She had become quite attached to the devious little thing. She would have to sharpen it again but at least this time she wouldn’t have to do it in stealth.

Her hands trembled as she reached for it, fingers curling in on themselves in their unwillingness to take it. It took a good fifteen seconds before she was able to pick it up. She could feel Rain breathing over her shoulder, frustrated.

She used her reclaimed weapon to nudge the last smoking remains of the pie into the bottom of the fireplace. Its death kicked up ash and embers.

She went to check the bedrooms. Everything looked just as it should have until she reached Toriel’s room. The dresser drawers were open and some of the books were missing. It looked like someone had gone over things in a hurry.

Her arms fell to her side in defeat. “Great.” She poked at Rain as she hurried back down the hall. “Are you happy now? Look what you did. Now we have to go find her. Probably in the snow. Ugh.”

They ran down the basement corridor, the darkness pressing in against them. All the lights had gone out. The air was stale and cold.

Possibilities ran through Chara's mind one after the other. What would Asriel do? What would he be capable of on such short notice? How much of his memory had he retained? Would he try to collect enough LOVE and XP to counter her own? Would he race off to defeat Asgore himself and use his father’s memories to locate the human souls and regain control of the timeline? Was that even possible?

No. If he could do that he would have done so long before she had ever come along.

At the end of the day he was always the coward. The crybaby. He never had the guts to go all the way. He would get someone else to fix this problem for him.

He had not warned any of the monsters along the way here., so that was a good sign. They had fallen prey to her as easily as ever. Already her power was beginning to grow once more.

Rain now recognized that a great deal of Chara’s power came from gaining LOVE and XP and so the nagging soul had been left with a difficult choice: try and save every monster they came across, preventing Chara from gaining power and effectively stalling her, or save her limited energy to throw all her effort into saving the most important of the monsters they came across: the ones that stood the greatest chance of helping her.

Rain had made her choice right away. She had fought at every crossroads, every bridge, every puzzle and every encounter. Viciously at first. Then methodically. Wearing herself down in an attempt to stall and effectively deciding to gamble against her later when she met Toriel.

The delay she had presented them with had indeed given Toriel time to escape but now Rain was exhausted and Chara had still managed to gain some power reguardless.

When they reached the end of the hall and the great stone door stood before them, Chara breathed a small sigh of relief that turned into a groan. She had been afraid that Asriel would convince Toriel to collapse the room again and cause them further problems but it looked like that had not been the case. He had however, encased the doorway in several feet of thick, thorny vines; all gnarled and knotted.

“Damnit Asriel.” Chara muttered. She just wanted to get out of this hell hole. She wanted to escape from the pages of this cruel story and find a place where everything was quiet. Why did everyone have to make that goal so difficult?

The thorns snagged on her sleeves as she began the monotonous task of cutting through the vines with the sharpened edge of her spear. By the time she had freed up the door enough to shove it open she was drenched in sweat; hair and clothes plastered against her skin.

She took a moment to catch her breath and massage her burning muscles. The call of the cooling blizzard waiting just on the other side of the door gave her the encouragement needed to untangle the last of the clinging vines and push the door open.

A cold wind pushed through to greet her, bringing flurries in to dance around her head and snag in her eyelashes. She pushed through the opening and awkwardly stumbled out into the snow, enjoying the cold on her skin. She scanned the area, wary of prying eyes. There was a massive set of footprints in the snow, still fresh enough to only have a faint dusting of fresh snow in them.

Toriel.

The boss monster was heading in the only direction she could really go at this point: Snowdin. So that was the direction Chara took her march in.

Rain stirred within her, her presence circling. Alert and searching for the presence of anyone other than themselves.

Chara tried to spy on her emotions, waiting for them to flare up and act as an early warning in case anyone tried to sneak up on them. But Rain seemed to be starting to get the hang of their shared body and separate minds. She did a decent job of hiding herself in the white swirling mist of her own secrecy.

It wasn’t until they neared the bridge with too-wide bars standing as its sentry that they began to hear something: the soft crunch of footsteps sinking into the snow.

Chara spun around; weapon at the ready. But no one was there.

She continued onward, wary of every sound as she followed the footprints and crept closer to the bridge. She could see a sentry station off in the distance now. Would Sans be there?

Her lip twitched at the thought of him. He was lazy. His body was weak. If she could get the jump on the sneaky bastard early on she may be able to get rid of him before he ever had the chance to be a problem.

The only issue was that she wasn’t sure where everyone was anymore. During their first run they had spent days in the Ruins, so she was making this entire trek ahead of their previous schedule. Everyone would be in different places this time.

Her train of thought was soon halted by the returning sound of footsteps.

She stopped and looked over her shoulder again. Still no one. “Hello?” She called out, scanning the spaces in-between the trees, looking for footprints. She could feel Rain’s anticipation pressing up against the boundaries of her secretive fog. She knew who it was but despite Chara’s attempt to pull the answer from her, she managed to keep it just out of reach.

She shook herself and continued on, biting her tongue as she went. Whoever it was, Rain would try and warn them. Chara couldn’t allow Rain a chance to say anything.

The footsteps came back. Slow and methodical in their approach. This time she did not turn around to look. She waited by the bridge and focused on denying Rain the ability to speak.

An all too familiar voice greeted her at last. The voice of someone she wished had stayed dead.

“human, don’t you know how to greet a new pal?”