A new chance at one HP

by Emeraldleafeon

20 Horror and Fight

Sans looked out over the vast expanse of mountains sprawling before them, the snowy drifts reminding him uncomfortably of Snowdin. Flowey and Alphys were sitting next to him while Papyrus sat wrapped around his shoulders, his skeleton form not visible. He had insisted on coming, despite Sans saying it was too dangerous. ‘BUT THAT’S EXACTLY WHY I SHOULD BE COMING!’ he had argued. ‘WE NEED ALL THE GREATNESS WE CAN GET TO SAVE THE DAY, AND THAT INCLUDES ME!’ Thankfully, Monster Kid had been persuaded to stay at the castle. Flowey was asleep in his pot, absorbing what little energy he could from the sun’s rays to prepare himself for battle.

The skeleton sat back down into the cushioned seat of the carriage, closing his eyes. The pegasi flying the carriage barely noticed the shift in weight. This was it, the final battle. This was the fight that would determine the fate of this world… well, hopefully. Sans had already had one such fight with the demon. It had ended with time and space being torn apart, and his dad dying to bring him to another universe.

‘well, at least I got some backup for this one,’ Sans thought somewhat cynically. ‘least I won’t be alone if we find a third world to drop into.’

Trailing behind Sans’ carriage were several others, each carrying important ponies to the battle. The immediate one following them held Celestia and Luna, the latter occasionally sipping from a flask of coffee to keep herself awake during the early morning hours. Following them were two more carriages. The first held Pinkie Pie, Applejack and Rarity. The second held Fluttershy, Twilight Sparkle and an armed pegasi; Rainbow Dash had offered to give him a break and was helping to pull the carriage they were in.

Ahead of them, Sans could barely see the trails left by a squadron of pegasi. The Wonderbolts had flown ahead, with the intention of reaching the Empire early and evacuating any survivors they could find. They would also be keeping watch for Chara, in case she made an early appearance, and clearing a landing zone for the carriages when they arrived.

Once the carriages touched down, Alphys would get to the ground and watch from a distance. The Elements of Harmony, the Princesses, Sans and Flowey were to be the main combat unit. When they found Chara, Sans would engage her with Flowey to tire her out. Sans was tricky enough to be able to survive against the demon for a long time, and Flowey could keep an eye out and warn them of any sudden saves or reloads.

Once Chara was weakened (preferably lower than 5HP, though Sans was willing to take what he could get), Celestia and Luna would ambush Chara and entrap her with magic. While she’s trapped, the Bearers would use the Elements of Harmony, hopefully defeating Chara for good. Best case scenario, it takes away her Determination and knocks her unconscious. Worst case scenario, it kills her and she can reload, aware of what the Elements were and what they would do. Sans desperately hoped that last one wouldn’t happen.

‘at this point, we can’t afford it. if it knows what’s coming… well. at that point, not much else to be done.’’

Sans felt a light tapping on his shoulder. “You know, worrying about the battle isn’t actually going to help, right?”

“this coming from the habitual worrier,” Sans replied. “not like there’s much else to do. hey, you know your part, right?”

“For the third time, yes.” At Sans’ stare, Alphys sighed. “But if it makes you feel better… I’m the last line of defense. I watch the battle and if it all fails, I message Spike to start evacuating Canterlot and everywhere else. Seriously, Sans, I’ve never known you to be this tense about… anything. You’re usually so laid-back.”

“this ain’t just anything, it’s everything. if we can’t stop chara, we lose. done deal. everything we worked for, gone.”

“I feel like that’s not everything.”

Sans paused for a moment, then chuckled. “can’t get stuff by you, can I… long story short, for the first time since the underground, there’s something on the line. something worth losing. and that… terrifies me. there’s even a promise on the line. you already know how bad I am with those.”

“REALLY?” Papyrus cut in. “I WAS NOT AWARE OF THIS DEVELOPMENT, BROTHER!”

“made it with the royal sunshine herself, to not get myself killed. never been good with promises, but in my defense, I made it before the demon arrived here.”

“Well, it shouldn’t be that bad, right?” Alphys asked. “Like, I know I probably just invoked the wrath of a thousand demons by saying that, but really. You’ve killed Chara, what? Thirty times? Fourty? And she’s gotten you once.” The lizard shrugged, adding, “It shouldn’t be that hard to almost kill them one time.”

“alph, how can you be so calm right now?” Sans asked in genuine wonder. “we’re goin’ to a fight that decides literally everything.”

“I... I don’t know Sans…” Alphys swallowed, before looking up at him. “It’s just... when I got on this carriage, I had this feeling of hope wash over me. Like, I know everything is going to be alright, you’re going to make it out of this alive. Everything is going to be ok. And it felt like everyone was with us, that everyone’s hearts were beating together.”

Papyrus piped up from Sans’ shoulder. “YES BROTHER, I TOO HAVE A FEELING THAT WE SHALL WIN THIS, THOUGH… PERHAPS NOT TO THE SAME LEVEL AS ALPHYS.” The ghostly skeleton looked over at the scientist. “ARE YOU SURE THAT YOU ARE FEELING THAT WAY? THEY ARE VERY STRONG. I WAS KILLED BY THEM, I CAN CONFIRM THAT FIRST HAND.”

Alphys’ eyes steeled as she looked at both of the skeletons. She took a deep breath. “Yes, I know this will end well. I just know it. You have the support that you need and those that care about you.”

Sans just shook his head. “I hope that you’re right…”

Alphys just smiled and looked back out over the scenery, smiling at the silence that had enveloped the carriage. The mountains and snowdrifts felt pleasantly nostalgic to her, reminding her of Snowdin.

“Yes sir, the landing zone is ready.”

Sans didn’t bother to correct the orange-maned Wonderbolt- Fire Streak, his name was- as he stood up. The carriage was circling around the Crystal Empire and they were just about to descend, now wasn’t the time to get silly about titles.

“Be ready with any equipment you need, it would be best if we can be in and out as fast as possible.” The veteran Wonderbolt, anticipating the skeleton’s next question, continued. “The creature was spotted at the ramparts of the castle. When she saw us, she returned to the inside and was last seen headed towards the great tower.”

Flowey growled, waking up suddenly. “Her save point,” he said. “She’s expecting us, and she set up her save point ahead of time. We won’t be able to trick her into saving into an ambush.”

“MAYBE SHE JUST WANTS THE FIGHT TO BE UP THERE AND SHE’S PREPARING IT AHEAD OF TIME?” Papyrus suggested. “SHE MIGHT NOT BE GOING TO ‘SAVE’ IMMEDIATELY, THERE MAY BE ANOTHER EXPLANATION. PERHAPS SHE SIMPLY HAS A FLAIR FOR THE DRAMATIC WHEN CHOOSING BATTLE LOCATIONS, AND-”

“Nope,” Flowey cut him off. “She literally just saved. I felt it. She DID go up there to save.”

‘so the fight’s happening in the castle, huh.’ Sans shook his head. ‘not gonna be as easy as we hoped, but at least it’ll give any citizens left the chance to get out.’

The stallion spoke up, cutting off Sans’ train of thought. “We’re going to be landing about three hundred yards from the main gate, so if the creature decides to come out we’ll have time to get away to a better position.”

Alphys nodded. “That sounds good, now please excuse me, I have to gather my materials and prep them for the encounter.” As she turned away her eyes grew distant, preparing herself for the job she hopefully wouldn’t have to do.

“She worried about it?” he asked. “It kinda sounded like she wanted the conversation to be over as soon as possible.”

Sans shrugged. “pretty sure she’s just hoping it goes better than last time. you worried?”

“A little.” Fire Streak looked at the castle. “We’re trained to save ponies and do stunts, and we can fight pretty well too, but… we’re not trained for this. I kinda miss the more peaceful days… Being a Wonderbolt full time is stressful.”

“well, we’ll make sure they come back.” Sans looked down at the castle, where the demon was surely waiting. Somewhere. “tell you what,” he said. “if we succeed here, you gotta quit your job and find something else. we’re not gonna save everything just for you to spend the rest of your life doin’ something ya don’t like.”

“That sounds fair to me,” the pony responded, smiling wistfully. “I’ve always wanted to be a teacher…”

Sans breathed deeply, his hollow rib cage expanding to fill lungs that never existed, as he himself fought the growing nervousness. “alright, chara,” he whispered. “second verse, same as the first.” He snaps his fingers and summoned a blaster beside him, floating alongside his head. Its eye sockets, normally dimly lit, were glowing almost as bright as his were. “this time louder and a whole lot worse.”

The combat unit had moved up to the main gate of the castle itself, preparing for the assault on Chara herself. Alphys and a groups of guards were following close behind, carrying a few cameras and magical reading devices. Atop the pile of technology was a pre-written scroll of distress and a bottle of contained message magic that would send the letter right to Spike. Flowey’s pot was being carried by Sans, although it was just for convenience; he knew that went it came down to it, Flowey would be able to tunnel wherever he needed to, even through solid crystal.

“I’m only letting you do this because the other choice is literally the apocalypse, trashbag.”

“love you too, angst weed.”

“Everypony ready?” asked a nervous Twilight Sparkle, stopping their banter. Her hooves reached up to assure herself that yes, the Element of Magic was still on her head, it hadn’t fallen off on the way there.

“Let us go forth!”

“Yeah, let’s go!”

“Okie-dokie-loki!”

“We’ll teach that darn varmint what-for!”

“I’m scared, but… with you all by my side…” Fluttershy took a deep breath, then nodded. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“Alright…” Twilight nodded to Celestia. “We’re all ready. Let’s go.”

Celestia’s and Luna’s magic enveloped the massive doors, pulling them open with a massive groan.

“Luna and I will move towards the center. Guards, spread out and look for survivors. If you do find them, take them back to the camp and evacuate them as fast as possible. We can treat their injuries later, I’m afraid.”

The guards following Luna nodded, choosing not to respond so they could keep their senses sharp.

Luna and Celestia entered the courtyard first, both of their horns glowing brightly. Sans and Flowey followed, Sans clutching the small fragment of Flowey’s soul in blue magic. Hopefully, throwing Flowey would allow him to get into battle more easily. He hadn’t liked the plan, but agreed to it anyway.

Celestia looked back at her faithful student, who lit her horn up and unleashed a wave of magenta magic. After a few seconds, she looked up and shook her head. Chara wasn’t hiding anywhere around the nearby perimeter.

The royal siblings quickly advanced to the center of the fortress, Twilight recasting the spell every time. It was designed to detect signs of life in the area, so it didn’t matter how Chara tried to hide herself; the demon was powerful, but not enough to will her own heartbeat into silence.

When they reached the center, Twilight cast her spell again, this time on the area beyond the door in front of them. She focused for a few seconds, and then looked at her teacher. “There’s a heartbeat out there,” she said. “I think it’s a survivor, it’s too fast to be someone who’s calm and in control like Chara. Pretty far out, probably a few hallways away. I’d estimate seventy beats per minute, give or take ten.”

“Seventy?” Celestia asked, confusion clear in her voice. “That’s extraordinarily fast…”

“it’s the demon,” Sans assured them. “remember, it’s a human, not a pony. just guessing here, but their heart rate is probably a lot faster than yours. I think alphys mentioned something about humans averaging 80 a minute, or something.”

Twilight thought for a moment, then nodded. “That would make sense. So it is her.” There was a pause as Twilight digested that information. “It’s actually her...”

“yup.” Sans chuckled despite himself. “and if I know it, it’s gonna want a cool place to fight. it’ll be in the throne room.”

Celestia waited a moment, to make sure they were finished and ready, and then she and Luna flared their horns. They pulled open the doors to the hallway-

“Oh my-!”

“WHOA!”

The two siblings looked into the hallway, disgust and shock clearly written on their face. Before them laid a crystal pony in a suit of armor, collapsed on the ground. His eyes were aimed up at them in fear, his mouth open in a silent scream. His terrified expression was only made more off-putting by pool of dried blood below his head, and the spear impaled through his chest. He was clearly not looking at them, his face was simply frozen in terror forever. The sight of a pony killed so brutally, however, was still disturbing to everyone there.

Fluttershy, Rarity, and Twilight immediately turned green and expelled the small meal they had before their journey. Rainbow landed quietly, dry heaving at the unfortunate pony’s fate.

“Yer tellin’ me that that thing did this?” Applejack questioned quietly, her hat tucked over her eyes.

“yeah…” growled out Sans. “this is it’s handiwork, all right. I’d hate to imagine what that creature would do to us if we didn’t dust, probably set of some sort of macabre monument to all the things it's slaughtered.”

“I knew from, from what you had told me that this creature was truly hideous,” Rarity stammered. “But I-I had never anticipated something quite like this!”

Twilight took a deep breath, and then another. “This is terrible,” she choked out. “I didn’t know- this is just… this is terrible.”

Fluttershy opened her mouth to speak. All that came out was a quiet whimper, and she closed it again.

Luna lowered her gaze, sighing softly. “If it were a thousand years since I saw something like this,” she said, “it would be a thousand years too soon. To think, I could have done this, had I not been stopped…”

The group stood there for a moment in silence, mourning the soul that they barely knew. Inside, even Celestia was shocked at this. There was darkness in Equestria, she knew this. It would be foolish to deny it. King Sombra had been a dictator with no cares for any but himself. Discord had been a mad ruler, denying the ponies under him rest and twisting them into dancing marionettes for his own amusement. Tirek, long ago, had attempted to leave all creatures powerless, simply to feed his own desire for wanton destruction.

But none of them had been like this. None of them had been willing to torture others individually. There was something horrifyingly intimate about Chara’s trail of blood.

Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, Rainbow looked up. “We’ve got to stop it now,” she decided. “If not for us, then for him. And everypony else, too.”

“Yes, we must.” The princess of the sun and ruler over all Equestria stood up and looked to the rest of her group. Her little ponies, and her friends. She would not allow this to happen to them. She promised this to herself, she would not let it happen.

One by one, the group continued on. Rainbow turned around and looked at Pinkie, the only one who hadn’t said anything.

“C’mon, Pinkie, we have to get moving,” Rainbow said. Pinkie didn’t respond.

Sans looked over at the normally happy pony, her poofy mane now slumping down around her body in straight lines. Her tail, typically wagging around or at least swaying from side to side, was dragging along the floor.

Rainbow continued to try and move Pinkie. “Come on! We’ve gotta go!”

The small party pony let herself be dragged, only saying one thing as she was pulled from the gruesome scene. “She died terrified…”

The unit followed a trail of bloody corpses towards the center of the castle, each body showing different states of brutality. Some ponies only had their throats slit, others had hundreds of cuts on their bodies, and an unlucky few were completely dismembered, with the bodies parts of various ponies being found several feet away from their torsos. Some were strung up, kept in the air by all four limbs from ropes hanging from pieces of architecture around the halls like macabre piñatas. These bodies were in a better condition, but had vast pools of dried blood below them with small shallow stabs on various points of their bodies. One pony had clearly put up a good fight, with a number of wounds covering his body. He was stiff and had likely died standing up; it would have been more inspiring if his body hadn’t been kicked onto its side.

“They were tortured to death,” Luna ground out through her clenched jaw, “I swear when we find this horror of a demon I will slaughter it with no remorse. Just like it did to our subjects…”

Celestia only nodded in response. Nightmare Moon had never been this bad, but Celestia suspected there was a part of herself her sister saw in the demon, a small part that enraged and terrified her.

The remainder of the journey to the throne room was uneventful, if one counts finding more bodies in various states of destruction as uneventful. Once they finally arrived they found the former necromancer’s throne room, it’s doors blown off its hinged courtesy of Sans’ battle with the deranged king.

“It's do or die time,” said Flowey in an attempt to psyche up the unit.

“I’d really prefer if that second option wasn’t there, Flowey,” Fluttershy quitely complained.

“Hey, we don’t really have that option anyway, if we fail everything goes downhill. Stop being a wuss already.”

Luna quieted both of them with a stare. “Prepare yourselves, they may come at us batting.”

“Swinging, sister,” Celestia lightly corrected.

“Do you really think this is the time for that, sister?”

Celestia smiled and readied her horn. On the count of three, the small group flooded into the throne room. Asides from the pile of rubble that was the former king’s throne, it looked like there was nothing there. However, there was clearly a small child sitting among the throne pieces, idly pushing around the smaller bits of rubble on the floor. The ceiling appeared to have caved in, letting a single beam of sunlight light up cavernous room.

The child looked up at the sound, and grinned.

“Finally! You took forever getting here. You never were one to dawdle, comedian. Tardiness is not a good look on you. And on an unrelated note, nice scarf. Whose grave did you rob, your brother’s?”

Papyrus remained silent, not wanting to let Chara know he was there. “nice sweater,” Sans shot back. “did you want to pretend you were someone else?”

“Oh, no,” Chara shook her head. “I had just gotten this before being brought here by that shadow guy. I had been debating it for a short while, but I had eventually decided you were not worth waiting for, and I went to kill f- Asgore.” She looked up at him, recovering from her verbal stumble. “But I had just barely changed and started down the stairs, when I was suddenly dragged into this saccharine landscape. Oh, I forgot to mention, this is your first time seeing the sun, isn’t it? So sorry to ruin that for you.”

“nah, don’t be. knowing you’re actually dead is the only way I’d feel comfortable here. it’s not actually that fun running away.”

“Ironic, coming from someone who ran away from the chance to save their brother. You knew I killed him, and yet you did nothing. You keep talking all high and mighty, and sure, I did kill a lot of people. But at least I am better than the cowards that sit there and LET it happen. Am I correct, Flowey?”

The flower in Sans’ grip said nothing, even as said grip tightened. Sans, however, remained as silent as Flowey.

“Now,” Chara said, “going back to the subject of my sweater. Do you know how hard it is to clean blood out of this type of fabric? It is absolutely ridiculous! This is my favorite shirt, and now there are ugly red stains on it. I wish the little horses here just disintegrated like your brother did.”

“they’re ponies,” Sans replied. “you know, you were actually a lot more tolerable before you started, you know… talking. can you just go back to shutting up and staring at me?”

Chara stared at Sans and adjusted her grip on their knife, a smile tearing its way across her face. Her head tilted to an abnormal degree, and her eyes started shedding what appeared to be tears, but ashen gray instead of clear.

“...yeah, never mind,” Sans muttered. “I think you actually might be better now.”

Chara wiped their face on their sleeve, standing up to look at the group confronting them. “Well, no time like the present, I suppose. Who should I start with… how about you?”

*Determination.
*File SAVED.

Chara looked at Celestia, and raised her knife-

Both of the diarchs launched a beam of pure magic at the child, vaporizing them instantly.

Flowey winced, as did Sans.

“You see?” Luna stated. “She will only have one shot at attacking me. Then she will beeeeeee̷e̵e̸e̷e̶ĕ̶̞̺͛e̷̺̎E̷̜̣͋Ȅ̸̠͌Ẻ̵̪E̶̮̔ͅĚ̸̩̈́Ḛ̴̛̘Ē̷̙̓͜E̴̼̓̌E̵̫͕͕̪̩͂̃̉̒E̴̗̳͓͑́̈́E̵̟̣̋̾Ĕ̷̡̧̛͓̦̓͆̋͜È̸͇̫̩̉̊Ȅ̸̞̠̏̀̂-

Chara looked at Celestia, and raised her knife-

Both of the diarchs launched a beam of pure magic at the child, which was swiftly sidestepped. The edge of her sleeve was burnt, but she was otherwise unharmed.

“Reload,” Flowey called out unnecessarily.

Celestia looked over at Sans. “She dodged?”

“yup, you killed her the first time but she knows your opening move now. pretty much always going to dodge it at this point.”

Celestia blinked. “Ah. I think I now finally understand what you meant by learning.”

“yep, that’s why she won after thirty tries, instead of losing after one.” Sans nodded, gesturing to the throne room as a whole. “so, what I need you and moonbutt to do-”

“HEY!”

“-is make a barrier, flowey and me’ll be inside wearing them down. we don’t actually wanna kill them yet, we just need to wear them down so they can’t dodge the elements. if you can, try to make it a one way barrier. that way, you can fire in but they can’t get out.”

“I can do that,” Celestia nodded. “A basic shield spell should work, on a grand enough scale to keep her inside.” She flared up her horn, but stopped as Sans waved his hand. “Oh, what is it?”

“here.” Sans reached to his shoulders and pulled Papyrus off his shoulders, handing the scarf to the princess. “he’s safer out there,” was all he said after.

Celestia looked at him, and nodded. Nothing else needed to be said.

The solar pseudo-goddess wrapped the orange scarf around her own neck, before turning and launching a giant half sphere around the throne room, leaving just enough room for the recording party and the elements on the outside. She looked over to Luna who in turn wrapped her own shield around her sister’s, creating a wall of morphing blue and yellow magic. Beautiful in its waving auras, and strong enough to not let anything from the outside in. A cage, that kept everything outside safe.

Sans closed his eyes and tossed Flowey onto the ground, who quickly tunneled into the rock-hard floor. He then stuck his hands in his pockets, grinning an empty smile at Chara. “well kid, just you, me and the flower. you know, I actually lost count of how many times you died. around thirty, I’m pretty sure…” The skeleton shrugged. “let’s just say thirty-one and call it a number. capiche?”

The child laughed. “You act as if rising numbers make me upset. I don’t care if we reach nine hundred, I’m fine with dancing to my own mania. We all know this song doesn’t end until I win, anyway.”

“sure, sure,” the skeleton said, grinning at some unexplained joke. “just wanted to make a clear point of reference anyway. now, I’m not normally one to repeat lines, but I’m gonna make an exception in this case. after all, it really is a beautiful day. birds are singing, flowers are blooming… and the sun shines bright.

“on days like this, kids like you don’t deserve to be basking in the sunlight. kids like you…”

Sans’ right eye blinked into oblivion, a gaping void taking its place. His left eye, meanwhile, flared into life, a blaze of green that nearly lit up the room.

“Should be burning in hell.”

Sans snapped his fingers, and Chara felt the familiar sensation of the world stopping. As soon as it started again, Sans appeared to the left of Chara. Chara turned to rush toward the grinning skeleton, but paused when she saw him standing completely still. Her instincts suddenly screaming, she ducked to the ground, right before the gaster blaster that was where he had been five seconds ago fired above her head.

She didn’t have a moment to rest, as a circle of friendliness pellets appeared around her. She jumped up, but was slammed to the ground, her soul glowing blue. Grinning at the excitement, she swung her knife in a circle, creating a red whip to appear out of her blade. It destroyed every pellet, before the red aura faded away back into her weapon.

“you know, I kinda wanted to ask about that,” Sans mentioned, casually sending a wave of bones across the floor at her. “the whole red energy thing is pretty new. you definitely couldn’t do it back in the underground, otherwise you’d have done it earlier. I’m guessing it happened when you came here?”

“How astute of you to notice,” Chara spoke as she slipped in between the bones, grunting as a vine courtesy of Flowey pierced her shoulder. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a sandwich, chewing as she spoke. “Ih hahs to do wiff thiff worll. Ah think my-” she swallowed, smiling as she felt her HP and ATK growing, and her wound disappearing. “I think my excess amount of determination is manifesting itself as outside magic. Even I could tell magic is everywhere in this place, and I’m not literally made of the stuff.” She swung her knife, causing a red beam to come screaming as Sans. The world stopped for a moment, and it passed by where he used to be, impacting the barrier and dissipating. “Like that,” she said. “It works like that.”

Flowey ducked under a swipe and dug through the crystal, reemerging a fair bit behind her. “Can’t say I like this new development,” he frowned. “It’s making you unfairly hard to squash.”

“You’re one to talk,” the child laughed. “Always ducking and hiding away, you two. I’m the one that’s supposed to do that, not you. And speaking of things we’re not supposed to do…” She turned to Sans, idly leaping over a wall of bones with spiked edges. “Wasn’t it you who wondered why people never used their most powerful attack first? It’s because we learn.” Chara got close enough to swipe at Sans, and her smile grew when he dodged away. “If you do your strongest thing first, I’m just gonna learn from it! You know that’s how I work!”

“well kiddo,” the skeleton said, summoning a blaster, “nothin’ I’ve thrown out has been my strongest. you should know that, you’ve seen enough of them.

“but not all of them.” Another wall of bones was launched at Chara, this time covered in a golden aura of flames. “you’re not the only one who’s gotten stronger. I’ve got a few new tricks up my sleeve. normally, I’d say I hope you’re ready… but I really hope you’re not.” His arm raised, and four more gaster blasters appeared at his side, golden energy glowing in their jaws. At his signal they opened fully-

And all four were sliced in half by beams glowing a wrathful red.

“You truly think I’ve only gotten STRONGER, you trashy comedian? Of all your jokes, that has to be the worst one yet.” Chara dodged another wave of bones jutting from the ground, before slicing a vine off before it even reached her. She bent down and picked the writhing vine up, squeezing it for emphasis. “I do not just grow in strength. I learn. I learn, I adapt and I overcome. And at the end of it all, I finally put an end to the cycle and kill.” Another blaster appeared, and Chara stepped to the side, watching the beam of pure karma pass inches from her face. “You may kill me once. Or twice. Or as many times as you can, in fact. You have my blessing. Because the more you kill me… the better I get at killing you.”

Sans reached out to envelop the child’s soul in a twister of blue magic, and flung her back into the spikes made of femurs behind them. Chara stabbed her knife into the ground, slowing her propulsion backwards and landing amidst the rubble of the throne. She stared at Sans and grinned, daring him to launch another attack at her. Prepared to dance around it like she had so many times before.

And so, she was completely caught off guard by the small, silent pellet of magic that landed right on her neck, and exploded. For such a small attack, it hurt.

Noticing she was slow to get up, Sans gestured with his hand. A bone rod, glowing bright blue, rose up from the ground and impaled Chara through the shoulder. The child instantly stopped moving, staring intently at the blue bone passing through her body. If she so much as moved an inch, it would likely kill her.

“you know, monsters don’t normally like doing this,” Sans said. “we find it cruel, and unfair. like, seriously. if we do stuff like this without justifying it to ourselves, it can actually hurt our soul. but, you know what?” Sans’ eye blazed to life again, glowing a bright green. “you’re worth it.”

Chara blinked at what the monster meant, before a searing pain suddenly shot through her body. She looked down in shock at the bone going through her shoulder, now glowing orange instead of blue. She tensed up and made to move, but it quickly reverted to being blue again. A small trickle of blood worked its way down the bone, a red mark slowly making its way down to the floor.

3 HP. She was left with just 3 HP.

Chara breathed heavily, the pain making it hard to think and her sins weighing heavily on her neck. An unfamiliar feeling of guilt, one she only ever felt when fighting the skeleton, shot through her. 2 HP left.

Despite herself, Chara began to laugh. She looked up at Sans and Flowey, who had appeared by the skeleton’s side. She laughed and laughed, and kept on laughing. She couldn’t help it, she just had to laugh. She kept laughing, until tears ran down her face. She kept laughing, at the world, at the monsters and at herself.

But it wasn’t funny.

1 HP.

“I suppose you want to kill me now?” Chara gurgled. Her throat burned with the taste of her own blood, and she still laughed. “You finally stopped the demon? You finally killed me? Congratulations! Let me give you a big hand!” She paused to laugh again, the laugher breaking off into a coughing fit that left her hissing in pain. “You really think killing me will fix everything? I thought you had learned. Turns out that is something only I do. I can reset. I can reload. I can make all your hard work go away. Did you forget about that?”

Sans shook his head, a smile on his face. “nope, didn’t forget. I just had a different plan. why fight you again and again, and lose on the sixtieth time…”

A small rustling brought her attention to his rear, where the elements had moved to join them in the barrier. The six of them looked down at her, some with sorrow and acceptance, others with anger and pity.

“...when we could just win on the thirty-first? we’re taking you out now, demon. a little monarch’s reign ended on the throne of a tyrant. fitting, huh?”

Chara looked at the six ponies in front of her, their elements slowly powering up. A deep, instinctual part of her told her that she did not want this to happen. Whatever it was, it would not kill her. It would do worse.

“I just wish you had made this easier. that’s my only bone to pick with you.”

Chara’s eyes grew wide as she saw the elements join together, a blinding light emerging from them. The six ponies began to float into the air, glowing brighter and brighter. “Wait… Wait! No, stop! STOP!” Her voice rang out on deaf ears, a beam of pure light washed across her. She looked down in terror as her body slowly began hardening into stone, and she desperately reached to the side. A look of concentration crossed her face.

“She’s trying to reload!” Flowey shouted. “Fire the elements! NOW!”

*Determination.

Everything grew quiet as Chara’s now stone body sat there, her knife forever pointing down toward the ground and her other hand spread wide, reaching for something only she was able to see. Her face was focused but terrified, eyes wide in concentration and her mouth open in a silent scream. Everything was perfectly still for a moment. If her reload had succeeded, everything would have been brought back to where it was before they had fought. Before they had encased her in stone. After a minute of silence, everyone looked at Flowey.

“She didn’t do it in time,” he said simply. “We did it.”

“it’s over…” Sans muttered. “it’s actually over… we did it.” He chuckled, then laughed. “we did it! we finally won!” Sans turned back towards the group, to see Celestia and the others celebrating-

And stopped suddenly as everything went black.