The room was dim, lit by the eerie glow of blue and white crystals that stuck out of the walls and ceiling in odd places. They cast a strange color upon the stacks of crab apples and the boxes of tea that had been left out on a nearby counter.

“Well what are you going to do now, old man?” She opened her arms wide in taunting and knocked a few things off a shelf with her spear. “I am in your shop. All your friends are gone. Are you going to try and fight me? Are you going to try and be the hero? Or will you just watch me leave so I can go kill more of your neighbors?” Chara remembered this monster. She remembered his voice and his laughter from her past life; her illusion of childhood. He used to always tell her to slow down and listen. She found him annoying. She wanted him gone.

He chuckled, head bobbing. He turned his attention to an old book full of notes and runes on the counter and held his magnifying glass over it. He didn’t even bother to look at her. “Nah. I’m no hero. Never was. Besides, one hit from you and, well…” He chuckled and turned the page. The chuckle rattled off into a depressed sigh. “But at least by talking to you I have bought enough time for some of them to escape.” He turned another page in his book. He wasn’t even looking at her. “So, you going to buy anything or just stand there? I’m warning you in advance that I’m not going to buy any of your chintzy garbage. And I’m charging you for the things you knocked over. And those crab apples you ate when you walked in!”

She was pacing in front of the counter, eyes trained on the faint shimmer of the protective barrier he was sitting behind. “If you knew what I was you wouldn’t be acting so smug.”

“And if you really were a threat to me right now, I’d already be dead.” He retorted. “I know that so long as I stay in here, you can’t touch me. So don’t act so smug. Besides, I know what you are, dear. And I have lived too long to be afraid of your kind. Humans, monsters, something else- the world will always have its shadows. But look around! Does it look like I’m afraid of the dark? Whahahah!”

She slammed her hands down on the counter. Her fingertips buzzed with static from touching the magical barrier. “You don’t get it, do you? All your runes, all your prophecies, they were about me. They have always been about me. I am the first to fall. The angel of death. You can taunt me now but eventually you will die.”

He closed his book and slid it off to the side. He pressed his dry lips together and squinted at her in annoyance. “Well that’s the thing about prophecies and the like, isn’t it? They always make sure to be vague so that anyone looking to fulfill them can interpret things however they want. Maybe the Prophecy is about someone who comes to save us from you. Or maybe it’s a metaphor for people saving themselves from themselves. Maybe the angel is a monster and you’re just a sad, lost soul. Or maybe it’s just a silly old thing someone carved in a rock once!”

She struck at the barrier in frustration, causing sparks to fly.

He laughed at her short temper. “Go ahead, missy! Swing away all you like. It won’t make much of a difference whether or not you get what you want here. Someone out there is going to stop you. No need for a gaudy prophecy to tell me that. People like you always go a bridge too far and fall. Someone better than yourself will strike you down.” He swayed his long wrinkled neck and scowled, bushy eyebrows knitting together. “As a matter o' fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone like that was already closer than you realized.”

Chara paused. Gerson was looking out of the shop’s entrance, expecting someone.

She lowered her hands, eyes narrowing. “You didn’t.”

He grinned a gummy smile. “I did!”

She shoved two extra crab apples into the pockets of her hoodie and stormed out. He was right; she had taken it a bridge too far.

“You didn’t think an ol' coot like myself wouldn’t have some security for his shop, did you?” He called out after her, cheery in his accomplishment.

She ran, dusty hair flying. Her eyes scanned her path and she realized just how boxed in she was. This was not the kind of place she would want to meet Undyne. Killing off Sans so early had given her a great boost to her LV but Undyne was still dangerous enough that she did not want to choose a boxed in setting when they met.

She headed towards the darkness up ahead. The area opened out into a place lit only by the glowing fungi. Even the surrounding water was nearly black, the fake stars up above becoming so sparse and distant that even their meager reflections gave off no decent light.

Her hopes of escape were soon whittled down by the persistent sounds of pursuit. On a ledge up above her a tall figure came racing out of the darkness. Her world was ignited by blue as several magical bars of light sprung up to block her path.

Boots scraped against the stone as her pursuer skidded to a halt. A familiar voice called out to her. “Human.”

***

“Take the high path and check the route leading to Temmie Village. I will loop around and cut her off from behind. If you see her, stay the hell away from her, do you understand? Block her but do not engage until I get there!”

“Right! I understand!”

“Take care of yourself, Papyrus.” They split apart, Undyne racing off down a narrow path alongside the river’s edge while Papyrus took a steep and uneven ramp up the mossy rock face that Gerson’s shop had been etched into. His mind raced in a state of blurred half resolutions. The note he had found in his brother’s coat felt impossibly heavy for a piece of paper. Its words seemed to bore a hole through his chest as he ran, eyes glowing with faint hints of orange, like embers, as he searched the ground bellow for signs of the human.

Off in the distance he could just make out Undyne’s red hair trailing behind her as she raced down her chosen path, eager to reach the other end of the stone gauntlet and trap the human once and for all. All Papyrus had to do was watch this end. All he needed to do was stay up high and block the way until she looped back around.

He felt a twinge of phantom pain in his neck and massaged the sore vertebrae with his free hand.

“Look, you seem like a nice guy...”

“Papyrus, I would love to be friends with you…”

“C-come on. You don’t really want to fight me. Two ships passing in the night, right?”

There were those strange thoughts again; winking in and out of existence before they were fully formed.

A flash of movement pulled him back to the present. There! The human!

She shot out of Gerson’s shop, weapon in hand and hair flying as she fled. She looked in both directions, choosing which way to run. His heart stopped when she chose his direction. With a clear certainty of where she wanted to go, she tore down the lane, cloak billowing behind her like a possessed shadow.

Papyrus redoubled his efforts, running alongside the edge of the path, occasionally having his view of the human cut off as rock formations and dips in the cavern’s wall up above blocked his view. The two entities raced towards each other, Papyrus feeling an indescribable mix of emotions surging in his bones with every step.

The ledge came to an abrupt stop. He skidded to a halt, boots kicking up loose stones. He lifted his arm, conducting several rows of glowing blue bones that wove themselves into existence. Each one thrummed with power and interlocked with one another to become a picket fence of dangerous magic as he pulled them up from the ground and blocked off the human’s escape route.

The human skidded to a halt, leaning so far back to avoid running face first into the obstacle that she nearly fell over. Somehow she managed to correct herself, spinning on her heels and pushing herself in the opposite direction in and attempt to flee.

He conjured a second row of blue, feeling tears prick at his eyes as he thought of how his brother had once taught him about blue attacks. Just like a blue stop sign. He thought.

He conjured a final blue shape, lopsided in its outline thanks to the unusual tax he was putting on himself by commanding so many stationary blue attacks at once. It hung there in the air, pulsing with an eerie light that lit up the area. A big neon sign for Undyne to find.

He watched the human pace her impromptu cell, her own weapon drawn. She moved like a caged animal, eyes wild and red.

He had thought that when he finally saw her face to face like this his emotions would solidify into something more absolute. He assumed he would feel what Undyne felt and he would be ready to do whatever was necessary. He would no longer believe that this creature could do good. He would be brave enough to see her die. Everyone knew she deserved it. She had hurt so many people. Yet when he faced her at last, his anger was weighed down by an aching sadness instead of rage.

“Human, why are you doing all this?” He croaked.

She stopped and looked up at him, thick bruised shadows hanging under her bloodshot eyes.

His hand strayed to the letter in his pocket. He pulled out its carefully folded contents and looked down at it, not quite seeing the words but remembering their meaning. He took a deep breath. “I know… I know you have done this before. Somehow. I don’t understand how or why, that was my b- my brother’s field.” He knelt down and looked into her cage with pleading eyes from atop his perch. “But human, I remember you. Or at least, I think I do... Sometimes. And the person I remember was kind. I think that at one time, we even wanted to be friends?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” She sniffed. Yet something in her eyes changed. For a brief moment he thought he saw something different in them. Something kind and scared and so, so desperate to be seen.

His soul fluttered. Perhaps she could still be reached after all! He pressed on, glancing at the bone in the air above them and wondering how much time they had. “Did- did we do something wrong? Did I hurt you somehow? Whatever it is that happened, whatever it was that made you so angry- I’m sorry! Truly I am!”

She threw her head back and laughed. “Maybe I’m just doing this because it’s fun, Papyrus. Did you ever think of that?” She was pacing the borders of her cage again; one nasty eye always trained on him while she hefted the weight of her weapon, wondering if it was worth disarming herself on a gambled throw. “I’m not worth saving. Not anymore.”

“You don’t get it do you? They will kill me!”

“No! No, no, no! This isn’t what I meant to do! Papyrus, hold on! I’m so, so sorry. I only wanted to knock you off balance. I didn’t want to hurt you!”

The memories made his eyes water, soon turning into tears. “That’s not true.” He whispered. He slid down the steep incline so that he was level with her. “I know that’s not true! Human, I remember your voice. You tried to be good once. I know you still have it in you to try again!”

There it was again. That look in her eyes. That look echoed in those memories he could never quite hold on to.

“I can see that something horrible has happened to you. You’re…you’re hurting! But even though you have done all these horrible things, I can see that there is still some good left in you. You just need some help breaking free of this darkness.”

She lowered her weapon and smiled, pushing her bangs out of her face. The angry lie began to melt away into amusement. “Wow. You can still actually see her, can’t you? That’s impressive. Very impressive. Not even your brother believed she was still there in the end.” She covered her mouth and laughed, an unhinged giggle bubbling up between her fingers as tears tugged at the corners of her wild, tired eyes. “She tried so hard to protect him you know. She only gave up on him when he gave up on her!”

Papyrus’s hands were shaking now. The blue bone barrier shimmered with the effort needed to maintain it in spite of everything he was feeling. Everything he was seeing. There was such a deep, horrible sadness in this creature. And yet at the same time she displayed a dangerous, cold kind of rage that caused his heart stop and his breath catch in his chest. “Please, human- whoever you are- let’s just start over. Ok? I-I want to help you.”

“Why? I killed your brother.” She chimed. “Shouldn’t you be trying to kill me? Shouldn’t you be trying to avenge him? If you did, you could become the newest member of the Royal Guard! That was so important to you last time, wasn’t it? She still remembers that, you know. She says she doesn’t care but I can feel her lying! Powerful, popular prestigious- that’s Papyrus! Right? “She sung. “So go on! Betray her again! Just like last time! Show her the real you!”

He felt the warmth of a magical heat burning in his eyes, turning the edges of his vision to amber while tears rolled down his cheekbones. He was so angry and yet still he pitied her. “I know you did. I know you killed him.” He managed through gritted teeth. “But, what good would revenge be now? You have taken away my family. My neighbors and their families too! Hurting you won’t bring them back. But you and I, we can still make new friends and help other people… can’t we?”

She was stepping closer to the bars now, seeming interested. The blue attack was drifting apart a little as Papyrus extended a single trembling hand towards her.

There was that look in her eyes again...

“Papyrus!” Undyne shouted from somewhere farther down the gauntlet, looping back around at last. She had several spears trailing behind her as she ran. “Papyrus! No!”

“And then maybe…maybe you could go back when you feel better? Back to the beginning. Somehow. Maybe I could help you make things right again.”

“Get away from her!”

“Undyne wait, I think I can help her!” He pleaded.

Several things happened at once.

Undyne threw several of her spears, a deep terror set in her eye.

The human lunged out of the way, her own weapon in hand as she pushed herself through the blue attack. Her skin hissed and bubbled as she screamed but still she flew forward, her own weapon in hand as she reached out to grab Papyrus.

Papyrus stepped back in surprise, eyes widening as he tried to lift up a wall of bone to block the attack but he already knew he was going to be just a little too slow.

Undyne was there at his side in a flash. An impossibly fast, imposing figure looming over the both of them. Shielding him with her own body.

The blow struck true.

***

Undyne knocked her away, sending her spiraling back into the wall of blue where she was left to reel in pain. Inside her mind a dreary Rain watched, mouth screwed shut with some bitter frustrated thought as she was tossed about in both mind and body.

The blow had been a solid strike. So vicious and so fast that it had cut clean through Undyne’s armor like it was nothing more than warm butter. Even as Chara reeled in pain she could see through her watery vision that the strike had all but cut her in half.

In truth it was shocking. After all the trouble Undyne had given her in the past, Chara had expected more from her. But this? This was what she had been running from all this time? Pathetic.

Papyrus was at Undyne’s side at once; stooping over her and trying to help pull her back to her feet. “Undyne, no!” He trembled, pulling her away from danger and setting up several defensive walls of bone as he went. He splashed into the shallows of the black pools beyond Chara’s cage as he retreated. “Oh no, Undyne, you’re hurt. Please…please get up. Don’t leave me here alone!” He begged.

“Hurt? It’s nothing.” She grunted, teeth clenched as she leaned up against him to keep from falling over. “Just a scratch, see?” She coughed, armor rattling in her effort to remain upright. “Damnit Papyrus, you should have listened!”

Chara began to push past the rows of bone, smashing her way through them one blow at a time despite the burns she had sustained. She had to finish them off.

“I-I’m sorry, Undyne. I was so sure I could do it. So sure that if someone just offered to help her she would be able to be a better person.” The light in his eyes was like fire as he positioned himself in front of his injured friend and tried to help her to her feet. “I thought… I could help her this time.”

Undyne closed her eyes. Her whole body was shimmering. For a brief moment it looked like she was going to turn to dust right then and there.

Chara sighed in exasperation as she crawled ever closer. “Why is everyone down here so stubborn? Just give up already; you are both going to die. There is no safe place for Rain to run inside her own head. There is no safe place for monsters to hide Underground. Just. Give. Up!”

“No…” Undyne held a hand against her chest. A milky liquid was seeping from her wound, falling from the gash and scattering into white particles of dust as it coated her glove and fell towards the ground.

“Undyne, no, save your strength. We need to get you somewhere safe.” Papyrus pleaded, raising up another barrier to bar Chara’s path as they retreated deeper into the marsh, water lapping at their shins.

Undyne held one hand up above her head and collected a spear. She pulled herself away from Papyrus’s support and smashed it into the ground, using it as a prop to help her climb back to her full height. “No! We can’t do that, Papyrus. I may feel like at any moment I will fall into a million pieces- but I won’t use that as an excuse to run.” She glared up at Chara and sneered. “When I look at that thing… I can feel something burning deep inside my soul. A burning feeling that won’t let me die.” She gave a breathy laugh, focusing on pulling herself back together. “It’s like I can feel everyone’s heart beating as one, holding me together. And for their sake, I can’t let her pass.” She shuddered again, teeth grinding against one another as she leaned heavily against Papyrus when he stepped forward to help her again. “But…Papyrus, I don’t…” she swallowed hard, “I can’t do this on my own. Will you stay and help me?” She extended her dust coated hand.

He took it, gripping it as tightly as he could while she pulled herself into an upright position. “Of course Undyne.” He promised, jaw set tight against his sadness. “I would never let you do this alone.”

Her whole body continued to shimmer, but as it did so a strange magical light began to emanate from her; changing her, mending her. “Heh. Good... Good. Together then?” Her voice echoed.

He nodded. “Together.”

Chara stopped in her attempts to push forward as the rows of conjured bones began to dissipate on their own or slide harmlessly past her. She looked ahead, an uneasy feeling forming in her gut. Undyne was back on her feet, eye squeezed shut in concentration. She had stopped bleeding magic and her armor had pulled itself back together.

This was new.

“That can’t be good.” She muttered.

“Human- no, whatever you are… you will have to do better than that!” Undyne’s eye opened, revealing an unnatural blackness accented only by a slit white pupil. Behind her eyepatch an eerie light was burning, calling back memories of the Judgment Hall for Chara. Undyne’s form stopped trembling and she sneered. “Because this isn’t just about us anymore, is it? Humans, monsters, you will kill them all if we let you. So for their sake, for the sake of everyone… We. Will. Strike. You. Down!”

The black water around them erupted into a roaring floor of foaming white rapids. Several thick rows of bones as tall as their creator burst forth from the depths and marched towards Chara like solders going to war.

The hollow blackness of the false sky above them began to twinkle with the light of falling stars, each one growing and stretching in shape until they became long humming javelins arcing down from behind the open arms of their creator. They rushed forward in tight packs towards Chara, singing on the wind.

Chara threw herself to the damp floor, forcing the air out of her lungs as she dove to avoid the spears. They shot by just a few inches overhead, one even managing to tear at her cloak.

She rolled left, then right as the first row of bones came marching past, leaving her with mere inches to navigate between the two attacks.

This was not what she had expected. She had not prepared for this.

She turned to run but the way was blocked. A white wall of bleached bone sentries towered over her.

Of course. She had forgotten that he did that. She would just have to fight her way through then.

She ran forward, shoes sloshing against the growing puddles left by the passing barricades. She may have to fight two of them now but she would only have to hit Papyrus once. She had fought them before and they were nothing compared to Sans.

Perhaps all she would need here was a new song to dance to.

Something bright began to collect in the air up ahead. Chara glanced up and her eyes widened in a jolt of shock when she came face to face with a large grinning skull.

She dove sideways, throwing herself up against the gauntlet’s walls. With an electric roar the cannon blast devoured the empty space between the two opposing forces. Marching bones turned to ash and the air around her burned as she narrowly avoided death.

Her half blinded eyes darted around in a moment of panic before she realized the blaster must belong to Papyrus, not Sans. “He has one too?” She yelped, pressing her back up against the wall as another spear shot by.

The skull turned towards her and opened its mouth again.

“Shit!” She vaulted over the next barricade. A few seconds later the ground exploded behind her in a hail of hot, sharp stone displaced by the blast. The shockwave nearly threw her into the next oncoming attack.

By the time her vision had recovered from the glare, the skull had shimmered back into nothingness. She hurried onward, fearful that it was only a matter of time before another one appeared. She leapt over one moving barricade after another, often having to knock away flying arrows as she did so.

She had to get closer!

Undyne and Papyrus watched her from up ahead, the water around them boiling in a semi-circle of chaos, the light from Undyne’s eye flashing in rhythm to her summoning movements while Papyrus’s eyes held a flame that jumped and guttered with each new wall he summoned.

“Two against one? That’s hardly fair, Undyne!” Chara called, vaulting over a rising barricade and knocking several spears away only to fall backwards when her knees buckled against the glancing blow of a spear that she had missed. Her body hardly had time to hit the floor before the next barricade was rising up out of the soggy earth and kicking her back, rolling her across the mud and stone while a swarm of arrows harassed her every move.

“Fair? Is what you did to Sans fair? Is the way you cut down my guard and their families fair? Is the way you seem to know everything that will happen just before it takes place, fair?” Undyne roared. “You spat in the eye of the only person left in the Underground willing to show you mercy. You do not deserve fair!” Undyne stepped forward, throwing both hands up towards the sky and sending several yellow tinged spears her way.

Chara had pulled herself back up to her feet by now, one eye swollen shut and blood running down the side of her head. She danced between the bones, leaping over them when she could, squeezing between them when she could not. She ducked behind a rising wall, causing several of Undyne’s spears to plunge themselves into the friendly attack. They vibrated with the force of impact before crackling into nothingness, the smell of ozone and spent magic hanging heavy in the air while the rest of the glowing school of bullets sailed by overhead.

When she got up and tried to jump over the moving wall she felt Rain’s interest peak. Chara looked over her shoulder just in time to see the spears that had sailed by overhead whip back around within the tight space of the gauntlet and dart back towards her.

“Oh shi-” Two of them hit her right between the shoulder blades, causing her to tumble over the bone wall and roll through several brigades of stabbing spears that shot out of the floor and eventually knocked her into a blue attack.

The pain made her gasp involuntarily as the ground fell out from under her. She was greeted by the muddy taste of cold, black water. She had made it far enough to reach the water’s edge and had plunged right into its mysterious depths during her fumble.

She flailed, the darkness teasing her with illusions of the water’s depth. The ground underfoot was muddy and uneven, shallow enough to stand in, in some places while in others she would not have been able to touch the bottom.

Her head broke the surface, pain radiating up and down her body. She screamed in frustration, pulling herself up into the shallows and staggering forth, feeling the weight of Undyne’s spears still biting into her back.

She was almost within striking range now.

She shambled forward, breathing ragged and weapon drawn. She could feel bones rising up beneath her feet and pushing her up above the water’s surface as she ran.

She reached for Papyrus, water crashing around her and movements becoming uneven over the growing strain of remaining upright under the boiling floor.

He was not ready to block the attack when it came, but Undyne had not left his side and this attempt was something she would not allow. Her eye flared with the brilliance of a searchlight, a spear blinking into existence as she stepped forward and knocked the blow away, red fins flaring as she all but hissed her disgust. “Not this time!” She spat, once again stepping in front of her friend, planting a boot against Chara’s chest and kicking her back.

It was then that Chara realized the greatest advantage they had against her here. She had not seen it among the frothing white of the boiling rapids, but as she fell back into the inky darkness of what should have been the shallows, she knew.

The water was deep.

They were standing on a submerged platform of bone.

Papyrus took a step back, Undyne following suit. The platform moved with them, rising up out of the water while conjured bones broke away from their main platform to pursue Chara as she floundered.

It was then that the undefined depths of the watery darkness underfoot began to glow. Several feet beneath her, points of blue began to rise up, up, up towards the surface. She froze, trying to float in place in order to avoid the burning pain of the oncoming blue attacks. The water around them boiled, the bobbing movements causing Chara to move despite her efforts. Their scream escaped in a column of bubbles.

In her mind Chara felt Rain’s jaw set to brace herself. She understood what was happening a few seconds before Chara did.

The blue passed them by and their head broke the water’s surface once more. They managed only one good gasp of air before the light of their soul became manifest in front of them; its brilliant red glowing in sharp contrast to the rest of the room. It flickered once, tendrils of blue smoke rising up out of seemingly nowhere and constricting around their heart.

“Oh no.” Chara managed to splutter.

“Oh yes.” Rain confirmed, having finally pulled herself out of her own protective plane of dreams and illusion to comment on the battle. Her presence held a dull, tired amusement within it.

They were impossibly heavy.

A new weight had been added to their chest, causing them to pitch forward.

Chara struggled, cursing as she choked back water and tried to swim to the shore. Overhead spears were falling, plunging into the darkness around her, hitting her more than once and forcing her head back underwater.

She was sinking. Deeper, deeper, deeper. She was too heavy.

She felt her feet touch the muddy floor. The surface became a more and more abstract idea with each passing second.

Rain seemed to find some weary sort of comfort in not being able to see the surface as they gave up and died, a fuzzy dreariness overtaking them at last. “You’re blue now. That’s his attack.”