fulllifeconsequences

[They hope so too, but they don't say so out loud. Hoping out loud jinxes it.

They just... keep cradling the orb. Staring down at its smooth surface with trepidation and a few timid hesitant flutters of excitement and... and a feeling so warm they don't even know what it's meant to be called. They can't believe Frisk thought of this. Thought of them, and the things they lack - no, the things they want - and... and decided to go and do something about it. Give them something. Them, of all people, the kind of person who shouldn't deserve anything that might conceivably be used to hurt people!

Frisk got this for them.

Not because they had to - kids gobble up money like termites, demand new clothes every year, new shoes, school supplies, and then they have the audacity to ask for money, ask for toys, ask to see movies, ask to join the soccer team, expect gifts every easter, every Christmas, every birthday, always coming up with an excuse to take and take and take.

Not because they had to. Because they... ha ha, because they could.]

Should - should I break it now? Do you wanna see if anything happens?

If you want! It's...it's up to you. Your gift, your choice.

[The other Chara had crushed it in a moment of desperation, and it had looked painful, maybe. Painful, even if Charas, it seems, always know how to play through the pain, tank every hit, forge through it and come out stronger on the other side. Still, it'd be nice if they could do something that doesn't end up hurting them. Instead just ends up...benefiting them. Something they want, something they can have because of Wonderland and merchants with skills for acquiring curious objects.

And Dreemurrs all know fire magic, don't they?

Chara. Chara Dreemurr.

It's got a nice ring to it. Maybe one day they'll let it happen. Toriel would accept it, they know, as would Asgore. They both seem so - so happy to see their child again.]

When the other Chara used it, it looked like it...hurt, a little bit? Might've been 'cause they were rushing and, and trying to use it to kill my Mirror. But...be careful, I guess?

[It at least requires a little warning, they think.]

Have I ever done anything that doesn't hurt?

[That's a joke. They're pretty sure they've eaten without... uh, well, not eating. They've done other stuff, though. Slept, probably. There have been events where they didn't fight anyone! They're doing stuff that doesn't hurt, like, at least 40% of the time, nowadays.

Anyway, no pain, no gain. It's gotta break sometime if they're gonna have even a thin chance at fire magic, right? They shift their grip, brace it against their lap, rap its surface with their knuckles experimentally.

...They're sort of amazed that this might be the first time they're supposed to destroy something magical and rare on purpose.]

Might as well give it a shot.

[Chara slams down their fist. Cracks spiderweb across its surface. One more hit, and it shatters.

It's - it's not painful, not in the sense of losing HP. More in the sense of... like how it feels to try and force their broken SOUL to SAVE over Frisk. Like something inside of them is being stretched wire-taut, strained to its edge. It feels like static - no, like sparklers hazing their consciousness - as an incompatible engine crashes into the framework already in place. It feels a thousand times more jarring than the whisper-subtle alterations of notes in the code. It feels...

It's a 963 sort of feeling.

It passes. Fades. They're left sitting there, looking down at their empty hands.]

Do I... I don't know, do I look any different?

[Frisk simply shakes their head with a vague snorting sound that isn't quite a laugh, but isn't a condemnation of their sense of humor either. Instead they watch in rapt silence as the impact of Chara's hand striking the glasslike material breaks it open.

They weren't sure whether to expect shards or fragments, but whatever the case is, there sure aren't any left once the Orb breaks. They wisp into nothingness, and Chara sits there, and they've got no idea what kind of internal changes must be taking place - whether that button managed to worm its way onto their menu, whether there was a struggle as things were rewritten and reorganized in a way they weren't intended to be.

When the light dims and the Orb is gone, Chara sits there and looks no different than before. Frisk shakes their head, slightly apologetic.]

Not really. Maybe...maybe you need to learn something to do with it, first? If it's like HP, you - you've always got it there. It's not always 'til you get hit that you realize something's changed.

[Numbers gone up and down and - how does one restore CP? Zacharie would know, they think. But they're not sure if they want to talk to him so quickly again, after what his mirror wrote, what he said they should say to him...

YOU MISSED ONE.

Except that's not what their brain had defaulted to. No. What their mind had assumed it must mean was:

* 1 left.]

So I might just have... unshaped potential?

[They don't really know how else to describe the situation, even if they'd really hesitate to consider themselves a person with any kind of potential whatsoever. Unless, you know, you count constantly being a potential disaster.]

Like, I just haven't learned any spells yet, or... actually, Frisk, start an encounter with me.

[A slightly more polite way of blurting "FIGHT ME," but essentially that nonetheless. They're pretty sure that Sans has turned them blue in front of Frisk before, so the sorry state of their quote-unquote SOUL shouldn't be a surprise, right? At this point, hiding it from Frisk is... that'd just be sort of futile, they think.]

Maybe I need to be in an actual fight to see if I even have the option.

[Couldn't just try and bring out MERCY without anything to use it on. Those options belong to situation menus, not casual inventory and stats.

Maybe they're thinking about it a touch too literally?]

How did Trash Chara [- that's their name now, even if it's not all that clarifying, because every Chara is trash -] cast spells? Just... wish for it, and it happens? Or... or is it like trying to SAVE?

[They're not sure...how to just - well, no. That's a lie. They know how to start an encounter, they just never do. Frisk's mouth tightens at the nickname - really, Chara? Though they can't even really be surprised - but they respond regardless.

And anyway, it's an excuse not to FIGHT just yet. They'll take it.]

All they had was the Stick. They just kind of...swiped the air? And it made marks, kinda like how the Knife does. Like a red kind of...echo of itself. Except it was solid, like a bullet, and when it hit the Mirror it - well, it looked like it hurt them a lot.

[So they've got the potential for a spell, maybe? A potential for magic if they know how to use it. The other Chara seemed to just push through it, and maybe that's why it looked so painful. Just went and forced the magic to be through - through sheer force of determination.

That's probably the most Chara thing they can think of, to be honest.]

[Swipe the air. Clobber the heck out of nothing in particular. Attack the darkness. Sure, why not? They sort of debate if this is actually something that's worth drawing the Knife for, before it strikes them that it's probably silly that Chara is debating what's worth drawing a Knife over.

They pluck out one of those purloined scalpels instead. If Trash Chara could do it with just a stick, a twig they probably don't have an ounce of sentimental attachment to, then... a regular item should be good enough for this Chara too, right?

Chara wiggles it in the air a bit. Wowie! Nothing happens!]

...Hm. Maybe magic needs a reason to work? Intent is everything, right? It certainly seems to fuel our SAVEs. I suspect... it might influence what makes the Dagger into the Knife, too.

[Frisk considers the words for a moment before nodding, nibbling on their lower lip.]

Makes sense. Need determination to SAVE, and you'd need some kind of...intent, I guess? I dunno if there's a limit to what you can learn, though. If you can pick up stuff like - like fire magic, or turning SOULs blue and stuff.

[Can they turn SOULs blue? Or is that just a skeleton thing?

They're rapidly learning that there is a lot about magic they don't really know, especially when it comes to humans.]

I wish there'd been more stuff about the human magicians in books and things. No one ever really talked about them on the Surface. It was like they just...disappeared.

It all became humanity's dirty little secret, I suppose. Don't have to worry about making amends for what you've done if you just pretend you never did anything wrong in the first place, do you?

[The two of them certainly know that. Don't like the outcome of your choices? Just reset it all away! Don't want to think about the seven human lives it would take to undo the xenophobic paranoid exile you imposed on an entire species? Deny monsters exist. Hush up knowledge of human spellcasting. Call it legend, myth, fairy tales. That whole "taking seven lives" thing can be the monsters' problem, instead.]

I can live without the ability to turn SOULs blue, anyway. No need to even experiment with that. Blue magic is objectively the worst magic. It's like... it's basically a budget version of being purple. They could only afford one thread to stick to instead of three.

...Turning SOULs green might be cool, though. You can freeze people right in place before they can even blink. Imagine the strategic applications if you used that a little more creatively than Undone did!

[Frisk nods glumly in agreement. Scrub out all kind of involvement that could be seen as unfavorable and pretend it never happened. Sounds like humans. Frisk, that's practically their M.O., huh? Always ready to make things interesting and never ready to accept the consequences for it.

Still, it'd be nice if there was some kind of historical mention of it. Where did all the human magicians go? Are there still some out there? Do they understand the way monsters are? Or maybe people drove them out too, the same way they did monsters, indicting them for the crime of being different.]

I guess you could always ask? I think the monsters here would wanna help you. Whether you meant to or not, um - I think they're pretty much all your friends.

[It just kinda happened that way, more or less. But Sans is their friend, despite the hiccups and things and bumps along the way. Papyrus is definitely their friend, because he's everybody's friend. Napstablook seems to like them, as does Mettaton. Toriel and Asgore are practically their parents. Alphys...well, they suppose that's the one person they don't think is one hundred percent on the Chara Support Train, more like she just appreciates them through osmosis thanks to their friendship with Frisk and everyone else. But they think that given time, that could change too.

But Frisk doesn't say it. Instead they shrug.]

I dunno. I think blue magic is kinda cool.

Undyne hated me when she was still here. Alphys hates me. Sans only puts up with me because I'm not worth the effort it takes to hate something. Papyrus only tolerates me because he's willfully ignorant. Toriel and Asgore only like me because they have to. Mettaton used our memorial fountain to shoddily promote himself and only deals with the pair of us by pretending the bad timelines are someone else's problem. Just because we had a single conversation with Napstablook that didn't end in tears doesn't mean they're our friend - you know which timeline they're from.

[They sort of know that was supposed to be a heartwarming idea, but whoops! Limitless self-loathing! The list spills out of them almost on reflex, shooting down the concept of help monster by monster. They bite their lip, look away, go pinker. This wasn't supposed to be depressing, wasn't supposed to circle back to the things Chara inherently lacks, but here they go, crushing the mood under a lead brick!

Time to deflect the subject back to something harmless with all the silver-tongued grace and subtlety of... uh... well, of a lead brick.]

You can get yourself another Capricorb and you can have dibs on all the blue magic your heart desires. You know, for all those situations where you wish specifically SOUL-having things were slightly heavier or leaning on a wall or something.

Alphys doesn't hate you.

[Frisk rolls their eyes.]

Look they're like - they're like me, okay? I like you. I like you for you, and no other reason. Papyrus likes you, and he believes in you. And Sans - how can you say he doesn't like you? After everything you and him have - he really, really cares about you.

[Honestly, they doubt pressing the point will get them anywhere, but they feel like they have to put up at least a cursory effort.]

Asgore and Toriel love you. They've made that really - they do. Remember true love's kiss?

[Well, frick!!

They can't go and argue that just because some guy on the Wondernet says it has to be true love doesn't mean it really is true love, because that would imply that maybe it wasn't true love when Frisk woke them up, and that's... I mean, they're not above that, but if they've already graduated from best friends to "you're my family" to straight-up soulmates, then it's probably true love. Abject inability to say so out loud aside, they can at least recognize it would be pointless and unconvincing to deny it.]

Whatever! Then they're just - they're only putting up with me because they have to if they're gonna be your friend. I follow you everywhere. Or... they're just doing like humanity did with magicians and monsters. Pretending all the bad things I did never happened. If they knew the truth about me...

[Alphys knew they didn't really just happen to get sick, and look what she had to say about that. Toriel and Asgore finding out that it was all Chara's fault they lost their real child, their marriage, their family, their hopes... no way "true love" would withstand it.]

They're not like you at all. No one's like you, Frisk.

[You're special. You're the only one who understands me.]

[Frisk looks at Chara oddly and...well, it's been such a nice moment so far. They don't want to contest it and turn this into an argument of some kind. They've talked to too many of their friends about this sort of thing, that pathological terror that everyone who's befriended you is simply lying until such a time that they'll see you for what you really are, and want nothing more to do with you. And you feel like such a liar for tricking them into it.

Those thoughts still creep up on them, from time to time. Recognizing them is one thing, but banishing them is a task they've yet to really become very good at.]

Well, [Frisk says with a sort of prim certainty,] there's no one like you in the entire world either.

Thank god for that!

[They laugh and flop back onto their bed, arms extended up over their head. Let the scalpel clatter into the abyss between mattress and wall, because that's one of several handy places for sharp things to disappear.

Chara lifts their hand up, frames it against the light on the ceiling, like they're trying to imagine the warm glow of fire flickering to life in their palm.]

I don't think Wonderland is ready for the idea of two kids running around trying to learn how to set things on fire.

[Frisk snorts despite themselves, shaking their head. They'd said it to Lucifer's face and meant it quite sincerely, that Chara was unique in every respect. And they are. They're their best friend and their - their soulmate.]

Yeah, but I mean it though!

[They retreat to their own bed and clamor on top of it, turning a fresh page over in their notebook. Start to wonder what maybe Chara would look like as a Boss Monster, then fetch out their packet of colored pencils. Purple for the robes. Orange for the fire. Red for the eyes. Hmm...and maybe red for a trident, too? Like Asgore's!]

And after everything - after all those people kinda...attacked you, I just thought it'd be nice to have something to, to protect yourself with. And you can use it to express yourself the same way monsters do. You know?

[They shift just enough to glance at Frisk. Can't see what they're drawing from here, but the graphite abyss has been left behind, and now they're doing something with colours, so... that's something, right? As far as Chara guesses, at least. They drop their hand back down to the bed, shrug, laugh a little.]

Aren't I supposed to be the last person you'd think would have trouble protecting themselves?

[The Real Knife, after all, is powerful. So powerful, Frisk had once wanted to let it rust to nothing at the bottom of the sea, or let it stay buried where Chara would never, ever find it - something that dangerous, after all, is better off buried where nobody can reach it. Something that dangerous shouldn't exist at all.]

Expressing myself like a monster, though... that's... it's a nice idea, isn't it?

[Did Frisk remember that when they'd been joking around with Peridot? It was just supposed to be impractical, dumb, impossible. The usual eye-rolling cringy dark stuff Chara's always on about, right?]

Maybe I'll try for a bullet-pattern birthday card. We've got, what, half a year or so? That's lots of time to practice.

[Frisk darts Chara a withering look, as if to say, don't even start. They saw the mess of bruises, the way they'd looked like they'd just come out of an encounter with a Boss Monster. A whole string of people saw fit to beat them up for just being who they were. They don't ever want Chara to have to face that again.

Chara specified knives, they remember. A whole host of them. Maybe they can outline them all around like a sort of halo, the same way Asriel's stars got everywhere.]

Yeah. You could, huh?

[They smile, small and soft, pleased at the notion.]

Or do stuff like light a fire with a snap of your fingers, or cook dinner without having to light a stove!

Asgore and Toriel have so much control over their fire magic, they can make one that won't even burn you. It's just warm, not hot.

[Enough control to burn fire at exactly the right temperature to bake a pie, to get a pot of soup simmering for hours without a burnt layer caking onto the bottom, to turn out golden-brown and crispy slug casserole without the slugs bursting and withering up.

Frisk already knows that, probably. Pieced it together from flavour text.]

It seems like that amount of contained gentleness would be even harder than creating a wildfire.

[They make the observation flatly, idly, with the air of someone just making conversation, but there's a layer of unease right in the very bottom of their stomach. It's... hard to imagine Chara being capable of gentleness. Of using power for anything but absolute, vicious destruction. Suppose they do figure out fire magic, but only manage to use it as a weapon?]

[Warm enough to put your hand in without hurting yourself. The mental image of Sans curling up amidst the still-warm embers and emerging coated in ash abruptly pops into their head, prompting an amused giggle.]

Maybe. I guess you'd have to ask about the specifics. I'm...not sure how you start learning that kind of stuff.

[They wonder, fleetingly, how much Asriel learned of his magic before he...

They stop wondering.]

Maybe...maybe there's books in the library too, do you think? Magic is all different across different worlds and stuff, but there might be something there that helps.

There must be something, surely. If items from other worlds work on us, then maybe we can adapt to techniques from other worlds, too.

[Future goo made an effective healing item, even without a description that attached a discrete HP gain to it. The Libra Orb worked, probably, though Chara still isn't entire sure what 15 CP is supposed to feel like.

On the other hand, why research when you haven't even experimented, right? Some people are readers, some people learn by doing. Again, they flex a hand, like maybe that'll be enough to set off sparks.]

Sure you don't wanna start an encounter with me? That's just how monsters communicate, you know. I'm not actually going to knife you.

[They contemplate, chewing on the tip of their pencil as they consider it. Magic and items from other worlds. They brighten slightly as the pencil begins to tap against the side of the page with a renewed vigor.]

There's...Sirius. I dunno if you know him, but he can use magic and says lots of people can from his world. Like it's, um, genetic? I think he said?

[Frisk hesitates for only a moment before pushing their notebook off their lap and sliding off the bed again, pausing only to shake the hair from their eyes.]

I know. I know you won't. But magic can be kinda - I mean, a lot of monsters didn't even mean to hurt me. They were just using bullets to say hello. Still hurt when they hit.

Yeah, I know him. He called me a Muggopuff, or something?

[It's been a while, and the words he bandied around totally sounded like something he just made up on the spot, in Chara's opinion. Like there's really a school named Pigchunks or whatever. Can't bullshit a bullshitter, guy!

And speaking of being a bullshitter, there's a what happened to "I could never be afraid of you lurking in the back of their throat right now, because Frisk... huh, Frisk thinks Chara'll hurt them if they make it a proper enemy encounter?

They stay quiet. It's... yeah, anyone would be scared Chara'll hurt them.]

Whatever. Be a baby, then. I'll start a fight with myself. If you want something done right, then don't bother asking for help.

I didn't say no.

[Frisk folds their arms over their chest, raising their eyebrows skeptically. They're standing up and everything, ready to go should that be where things head. They can finish up their drawing later. Maybe pin it up above Chara's bed when they aren't here. Surely they wouldn't remove something that cool from their walls, right?

The reprimand is gentle, though, and Frisk had already made up their mind.]

I just mean be careful. FIGHT and MERCY are straightforward, but we don't know what magic can do when it's coming from you instead of at you.

[Gosh, if Frisk's okay with it... Chara gets to their feet, holds up their empty, knifeless hands one more time just so Frisk can be Double Sure, and gets to work.

The world seems to flicker, color draining from the edges of their vision as they pluck Frisk into combat - real, proper combat, the way the Underground knew it. The kind of formality that Wonderland didn't seem to have any need for, but still something they remember. In front of them, Frisk. Illuminated by the warm saturation of a SOUL in full bloom, red and whole and bright. Hovering in front of their own chest, something sickeningly inferior. Less than an eighth of a SOUL, not enough to make out a coherent heart shape. Broken fragments, shuddering and straining for each other, but lacking the strength to fuse back into one.

But that's not what's important now.

...They can't resist.

ACT. * Check

* FRISK - 0 ATK 0 DEF
* Good at Sticking to their morals.]

You're still not wearing any armor? Those gross bandages aren't even worth any DEF.

...Um, no sign of any spellcasting in the ACT list. The ACT option isn't gone, either.

* IC Inbox

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