Asharatale

The Surface, Reapertale Timeline, ????

“I don’t get paid enough for this…” Fell said despondently, as he was forced to retreat from the distorted form of the Bravery Soul, who rushed him again and again with a flurry of unarmed strikes.

Deet interposed between them, slashing with their claws, stalling them long enough to strike an ascending chord on his guitar and spray a column of fire at another of the six corrupted Human Souls. They expertly avoided his attack, but fell into the radius of Yūrei’s Lifehunt and recoiled in pain.

“You almost done yet?!” He asked the Frisk of this Timeline; the Avatar of Mercy apparently, who shook their head, despondent.

“There’s so much pain…I…I’m not sure how…”

“Fell, Down!” Knives shouted at his flank, and he ducked just as black-tinged yellow bullets sailed through where his head had been, rolling forward, finding his feet, and casting Chaos Spears to force his attacker to move or be struck. He angled them in such a way to lead the Human into Knives’ attack, and she ran them through with a rippling purple blade trailing black embers. The Human, the Justice Soul, winked out of existence, but he knew they would manifest again within the minute. All six would continue to do so until the real enemy was defeated.

Chara, the Envoy of Chaos and the source of this Timeline’s corruption, battled with Yūrei and the Sans of this Timeline, all of which fought with sickles and chains. They spun in dizzying acrobatics punctuated by the ringing of Magical steel on Magical steel.

The other Monsters of this Timeline, Gods from birth but considerably less powerful than Monsters with seven absorbed Souls, dealt with the swarms of living, maddened Humans, and Flowey, which had assumed their Omega Form.

That was where the Six Souls emerged from. They had to take them out…

Leaving the last three with Wingding and Swap, he cast Hyperdeath point blank into Flowey’s face, cutting off the beam that emerged there and sending them lurching back, gagging and toothless. Undyne followed up on his attack, hundreds of spears raining down from above, which sank into the limbs they interposed to block. Asgore and Toriel, working together, blasted the abomination with Fire Magic.

But Omega Flowey recovered quickly, cackling madly as all the damage repaired itself. But he saw one of the Souls un-link from their mass, and knew that Frisk was gaining momentum.

Not giving Flowey a moment to realize what had happened, Fell pressed the attack, spraying Fell Flame as Deet leaped onto their flank and began to slash them with bone-tipped claws. They were swatted away but suffered little damage, given their internal layer of bone armor, and charged back into the fray without slowing.

“Bring it down!” he roared, his Soul corroding in his chest from the use of Magic but not allowing it to slow him, “As one!”

Yūrei traded blows with Chara, their scythe nimble as a dagger but stout as a warhammer. Every impact wrenched his chaos kusarigama painfully. If he’d gripped them any more tightly they’d have been torn from his hands by now.

She was relentless. He’d never seen a being Fight with such ferocity.

“This must stop, Chara!” he told her, using smoke bombs and paper strips lined with black powder to confuse and disorient, “You’re harming the very people you once claimed to serve!”

Chara, the Fallen Human and here the fallen servant of the gods, snarled, weeping black fluid, “They betrayed me by creating Death! They abandoned us! Let the world fall to Entropy!”

She lunged forward, hooked the blade into one of his chains, and snapped it at the link, kicking out at his wrist and sending one kusarigama flying. Sans was there to force her back, and he hurled a cluster of star shuriken to occupy her vision while he retrieved it, rolling to avoid a column of virulent Magic she summoned to harry him.

Omega Flowey roared in the distance; he assumed they’d noticed their dwindling Souls and redoubled their efforts.

Just a little longer…

He charged back into the battle just as Sans pulled back, a crimson slash across their weapon and its integrity ruined. “Hitodama!” he cried, summoning motes of pale flame that orbited his body, swinging one kusarigama by its still linked chain, then backhand striking with the other as the first rebounded deafeningly. It nicked her on the forearm, transferring some of her vital force into him; with his Mu Soul he could safely absorb her corruption without falling under her control. His flames drained her further, but her Soul lost none of its luster.

Hundreds of blood red Souls leeched from her body, all corrupted by her Determination, and he darted away, snapping his wings to increase the distance as the Soulmasses swarmed him.

“Hitodama!” he cried again, creating a swirling vortex of pale flames as Chara crossed the distance and sent him sprawling with one tremendous blow. Air pushed from his lungs, weapons sailing uselessly, he drew two handfuls of shuriken, charged them with Magic, and peppered her with them before tumbling to the ground.

The world spun on its axis for a moment while he struggled to find his feet, picking broken mask pieces out of his cheek. She’d cloven him from left cheekbone to right elbow, a grievous cut running across and down his chest.

Papyrus stepped in, robed in black and armed with a scythe like their brother, “RECOVER WHAT YOU CAN, LITTLE FUZZY GOD THAT I DON’T KNOW YET. I WILL HELP HANDLE THEM.”

His latent Determination, corrupted in its own right, set to mending the wound, and he panted, taking stock of the situation while he could. Flowey was down to three Souls, with the other three at Frisk’s side and channeling whatever Magic they were casting. A white corona had engulfed them, turning the bare, scorched earth at their feat into a small circle of yellow flowers.

His tunic was a shredded mess; he tied it around his waist and breathed deeply, the wound closing without even a trace of the scar. From the lines of blackened fur about his chest and neck, he bled oily shadows that suffused him, while his horns, fangs, claws, and the talons on his wings began to glow brightly.

He was filled with Determination.

Like a loosed arrow he covered many paces in one, thrusting his wing talons into Chara’s flank even as Sans and Papyrus attacked in unison, ruining her defense. Reorienting on him, she parried a flurry of blows but could do little else as he drew even closer and raked his fingertips across her face, drawing blood. Again, again, he harried her, using every sharp point on his body as a weapon, his movements blurred with the aura of shadow. Corrupted Souls blasted him. He paid them no heed. Chains and knives lashed at him from all sides.

He paid them no heed.

“Twin Chaos Fang!” he snapped, cutting an X across her chest with his wing talons, the residual light forming a momentary trace of the wound, and she collapsed, insensate.

There was a plume of light, diffusing the shadows, and he cried out in pain, burning, retreating behind Papyrus to hide in their shadow. It didn’t clear, and suddenly he burned from all sides before something muffled it.

Yūrei opened his eyes to find that Papyrus had secreted him in the folds of their robe, their expression worried. Able to peek out without being burned, he saw that where once the sun had turned dim and red, the skies dark, now everything was bright, the sun shining its natural yellow.

He also saw Frisk and the six Humans first corrupted by Chara, now restored, and another…

Asriel, the God of Hope in this Timeline, was kneeling before Frisk, likewise restored, weeping as they embraced. The ground for a stone toss in every direction had filled with flowers. The maddened Humans, driven by Determination, had stilled, their expressions unreadable. The Gods, too, had gone silent, in disbelief. Asgore and Toriel looked on, before approaching nervously.

Chara lay still, flickering in and out, not alive but not dead either.

“I’m…” Asriel breathed, shaking, “I’m sorry. I didn’t…I didn’t…”

Frisk shushed them, then turned to Chara. Asriel gulped, and together they went to her.

She seemed to sense what had happened, groaning, rolling onto fours.

The rest of the Delta Core advanced, but he stopped them.

“Wait.”

And so they did, to see how this would play out.

The anomaly that had once been the first Human rose, saw what had happened, and turned away, shaking.

Frisk and Asriel came even closer, and no attacks from her were forthcoming.

“I…failed you…” Chara rasped, unable to face them, “They looked to both of us to give the Humans hope…and I failed you…I just wanted to…”

“I know.” Asriel said, reaching out a hand, and when she didn’t strike it away, he pulled her into an embrace as well, “But it shouldn’t have been your burden. And what they did to you…I’m so sorry, Chara.”

She didn’t look at them. Perhaps she couldn’t. All Yūrei could tell was that black tears cascaded down her face.

The Souls inside her bled away, the corruption diminishing. They regained their natural colors and Traits, and Sans set to work with reaping them. Papyrus left him with their outer robe before joining their brother, soothing those they could into departing to the afterlife.

Then, when that was done, they both turned to Chara.

“Don’t…” Asriel stammered, realizing their intent, “P-please, I…”

Frisk stopped the two Gods of Death, “Mercy.”

That single word stopped them in their tracks.

“No can do, kiddo.” Sans replied, glaring at Chara, “She was the first to die. I messed it up. For all this to end I need to do my job. If we leave her like this, she’s just gonna’ make another mess.”

Chara shook in Asriel’s hands, but eventually pushed him away, facing them. Her face was composed, “Do it, then.”

Before Sans could reap her Soul as well, Yūrei stopped them, advancing as quickly as he dared to not subject himself to sunlight, “Wait!”

The gods, all of them, focused on him. It was at this point he realized most of his mask had broken off.

“I have another solution. We…” He continued, motioning to his friends, “Are not from this world. We have…a place she could be taken to, where she could do no harm. Nobody else has to die this day.”

Sans grimaced at him, but Asriel and Frisk looked to each other.

“You…seem a bit like them. Who are you? All of you? Are you gods?”

“No.”

He shifted uncomfortably, “We’re our own kind of darkness. But one what works towards the greater good. There is a dark, quiet place we could take her. A place between all worlds. Unless another anomaly threatens, you need never see or hear from any of us again.”

Toriel and Asgore, the foremost of the Gods, studied him carefully, before looking back to Chara.

“You reek of the same corruption.”

It was a statement, not a question.

“It is difficult to explain.” He told them, “The Determination was not my own, but rather that which was given to me freely. I would simply ask you to trust me. Trust us.”

Fell cleared their throat, scratching behind their neck, “If you still need convincing, you can take it up with the boss.”

There were crows all about the barren trees; Azazel, keeping watch. His presence grew about them, tangible, from everywhere at once. Even Asgore became uneasy.

“Another, darker reflection of the gods, apart from this world…”

They looked to Chara, their adoptive child, “Is that, then, the path you must take?”

She looked down, stricken, “I don’t belong here anymore. And I don’t want to die. I’m…I’m not ready.”

“Nobody ever is.” Sans chimed in, but was promptly ignored.

“So be it…” she decided, “If am I to…go with you, then so be it.”

Downcast, she held out a hand, and the scythe manifested. Everyone tensed.

But she merely handed it to Sans, “You may have this back, then. I don’t think I will need it.”

Baffled, Sans nonetheless accepted the weapon, and the fragment of their hegemony it represented, inspecting it and finding it, and the gesture, authentic.

Turning to Frisk and Asriel, she breathed out, before managing a strained, tired smile, “I think this place will be better in your hands than mine. Good luck…Frisk. Maybe Mercy will succeed where Hope alone could not.”

Daring a final embrace with the Asriel of this world, she turned to him.

“I’m ready.”

The rest of the Delta Core; Fell, Deet, Knives, Swap, and Wingding, surrounded her. Crows filled the air.

“We go, then.”

Yūrei looked up, finding himself concealed in the shadow of the crows, and returned Papyrus’ robe, “So be it. Azazel…?”