video sent from Asriel's TAB; cw for poisoning and child death

[inconsequence]

[They turned on the recording as soon as he started to fall to pieces, his fur soaked with tears and turning the dust to slurries of gray. There's a flash of green and yellow sweater before the camera spins, dizzyingly, to settle upon a Boss Monster curled up against the floor. He looks like he might be - melting, or falling apart, white fur slicked with sweat and dust and worse, his fangs and lips stained with flecked yellow.]

Ready, Asriel?

[A swirled nest of dust and bruised golden petals scattered across the floor, and Asriel is trying to speak, but the child overrides him easily:]

Do your creepy face!

[He starts to split apart by the seams, dusted cracks spiraling up his fur and down his claws and along his crumbling ears. He always did love to record things, and holds the memories close to his heart and SOUL.

This one, too, will remain with him forever.]

Ch...ara... [Every word sounds like an effort, and he's falling apart, more and more, by the moment.] ...hel... p... m...e...

[He doesn't last much longer, after that.



The visual cuts. A child sits cross-legged on the kitchen tile next to the heap of dust once designated Asriel Dreemurr, a disturbingly serene, domestic scene to contrast the horror of his slow, protracted demise. Smiling, as though nothing is wrong.

Their eyes are black, right down to the whites. Ha ha.

In their hands is a disk. Asriel's disk, in fact - his identity, compiled into one useful little compendium of easily-rearranged code. Everything he is, packed into one handy drive. They turn it slowly, slowly, between their fingertips in a continuous revolution.]

Would you like to hear a story?

[They address the network via Asriel's TAB with an even disposition, a smile peaking white beneath parted lips.]

It's ever so funny, really.

Once upon a time, a pair of children tried to make a surprise for their father. A butterscotch pie, like their mother would always make. But they made a small error, see: instead of cups of butter, they used buttercups.

[They pick one of the gold petals from the ground, crushed and coated in gray as it is, and pinch it between forefinger and thumb.]

He grew terribly, terribly ill. One of the children felt just awful about it. But the other...?

[The petal drops to the ground, spiraling lazily as it catches in the air's resistance.]

Why, they laughed.

[The word twists out in a sickening burst of crimson. It's unclear, how it is that a word can feel red, but regardless of how possible such a thing might be, the child has accomplished it. They are, after all, very determined.]

You see, they just wanted to see him suffer.

[They smile, sweetly, at the feed one final time.

And the recording ends.]

Comments

[notglitching]

[No answer. Nothing but posturing, nothing but threats—from both sides of the room. Rinzler finds himself slightly bemused that Frisk outpaced him on that count. But they always are more willing to do harm when anyone but them is on the line.

No point in repetition. Instead, Rinzler crouches down, placing one hand flat across the ground.

Scan. Trace. Residual energy, signature and ID imprinted in passing and called, from most recent to least. Motes of light float up from underneath, clustering in familiar shades. His own steps, red-orange footprints lunging from the doorway's edge. Frisk's: smaller, but much brighter, tracks lit up in user-white.

What else?]

[inconsequence]

[Wrong again, Partner; there's an awful lot that can be broken. Up to and including the child you call your own. Your humble servant, your personal guard dog, your demon, your friend - whatever it is you choose as it suits you, really!]

[Where are they, by the by?]

[Curious, that.]

[Tracks creep up across the ground in a haze of orange and white. And then...]

[What footprints does a shadow leave? How about one that is already a cheap imitation of something that barely counts as real to begin with?]

You're in no position to be making threads, Frisk.

[And just for that, they wind back to deal the disk a hearty blow.]

[gainedlove]

[Frisk's blood freezes, and they have barely a moment to react before they fling the disk at the shadow. Aimed for the raised arm, primed to explode on impact. They can't let this happen, they can't they can't they can't]
[Their fault their fault it's all their FAULT.]

[notglitching]

[Not what, but where. And, perhaps, a little bit of who. Rinzler doesn't know if Chara's duplicate will read different than they do. But Rinzler knows where it is. Rinzler knows that if he looks back far enough, excludes its path and isolates what's left...

A task, undoubtedly, for later. The threat winds up; Rinzler folds forward onto his outstretched limb... only to stall, launch pivoting into into a quick reversal. The shadow might not ID clearly, but he can pick up the overbrightness of Frisk's disk, unstable charge condensed to detonate on impact. Unless the beta has much more control than he'd expect, that throw isn't one to be within five meters of.

Or, say, in the same small room.

No time to focus on the threat. He moves toward Frisk instead, frame interceding between them and the blast zone. Grant cover, get them down—]

[inconsequence]

[The disk cleaves through them easily, as simply as if their flesh were sculpted butter. It rips through the skin of their cheek and something dark and half-formed leaks out from the gap, slicked as oil and polished to a ghastly shine.]

[It swallows half their face, until only one ink-dark eye stares out at the unsightly pair. The rest of their face dissolves in a hiss of black - ]

[And begins to knit itself back together.]

[The explosion thrusts the parody of the child forward, jarring the disk from their hands. It skitters out across the floor. The twisted remnants of their silhouette buckle; the burned-blackened shape of their fingers and arms gradually pooling back together into a familiar structure.]

[* It's me.]

[gainedlove]

[They don't have the mind to react when Rinzler tackles them to the ground, and the explosion leaves them deaf for several moments. Their disk rockets back and buries itself into the mattress just above where the two lay prone, the blazing light quickly fading to inert. There's something of them scorched, and they can taste copper in their mouth, but none of that is important.]

[They need his disk.]

[Frisk scrambles to get out from under Rinzler as soon as they see the shape out of the corner of their vision, throwing off his protective hold with a desperation unlike any they've shown before--bar a few particular instances. They scramble, trying to reach it before the shadow can heal and take off, get it out of their reach and keep him safe, they have to, they have to--]

[notglitching]

[The blast is close, charge rippling in a wave aimed to stun or shatter everything in range. Rinzler tucks his armored frame around the beta's, one arm encircling, absorbing the force and deflecting it to motion. The pair roll forward. The weapon shoots back overhead. And Rinzler comes upright in a crouch, hold dropping as soon as the shockwave passes.

Frisk lunges back: predictably, for Asriel. Rinzler takes half an instant to merge his disks and snatch up their own. The speed with which the threat reforms reeks of virus, malware, something too corrupted to have shape. It's questionable how much damage it would take to stop the thing for good. Still, it's not Chara. And it isn't telling them where Chara is.

The enforcer slides between his ally and the threat, one disk active in each hand. He doesn't wait for it to act, but slices, low and quick, to cut away mobility. Keep it focused on this Game.]

[inconsequence]

[Ah, well. You win some and you lose some.]

[The swipe takes the legs out from under them. The tar-slick puddling at their feet has to take several moments more to reform, collating into two oily pillars that gradually form the child's silhouette once more.]

You should be more careful with your toys, Frisk.

[They're laughing as the jellied remnants of their mass and shape coalesce, black bleeding into yellow-green threads of a sweater and pale, rosied flesh.]

They are so easily broken, after all.

[gainedlove]

[Their voice freezes Frisk in their tracks, making them turn and stare as the...the mass becomes something else, oozing and solidifying but still not right, and something rattles in the back of their mind with sick FAMILIARITY that holds their breath taut and they]

[can't]

[move]

[notglitching]

[No lasting harm. Still, the delay was something. Rinzler plants a hand and twists, lower body slicing sideways—kick, and drop, onto the virus' core. If the manuever succeeds, he'll pin it underneath one knee, disks ready to interpose in the event of an attack. He remembers Chara's knives.

Noise rattles out quick and even... and not loud enough, not quite, to hide the fact that the steps behind him have stopped. Rinzler doesn't look back, but he stills, scans searching in periphery.

Has Frisk grabbed the disk?]

[inconsequence]

[Pin it he does, though it hardly seems concerned. Largely because it only remains trapped on the floor for a handful of heartbeats - those issuing from the sole living, frantic creature in the room - before it begins to ooze out from underneath the point of Rinzler's knee.]

[A hole melts into its abdomen, and the shape of its body begins to slither across the ground, away from either them - heading for the door.]

[gainedlove]

[They do have the disk, held in their arms folded over their chest, held tight like the precious and fragile treasure it is. They also stand between the shadow and the door, and something in their mind flickers for a beat--a sensation like falling, something opened up beneath until they tumble down and down and down--]

[With a faint whimper they turn and crouch, curling their whole body around the disk to try and protect it, keep it safe. Let the thing do what it will to them, but leave Asriel be.]

[notglitching]

[After the last time, the maneuver's not completely unexpected. Rinzler was just hoping that this time—with contact, with proximity—he'd find a way to stop it from making it away.

He lags not at all in trying. Weapons supercharge, flaring in each grip as they strike out: red-white before he folds back over his own attacks in a neat flip to land and repeat the gesture. If it can be harmed, if it did need to stay solid, the cycle of attacks would do so. Certainly, if it makes any effort at taking shape to target Frisk, he'll be right there to intercede.

"If."]

[inconsequence]

[If?]

[Sorry to disappoint.]

[Turns out it has better to do, crawling for the door, snaking beneath the crack between wood and floor tile with an inexorable, oily shine. They rescued Asriel. They beat back the horrible, awful villain. They triumphed and saved the day.]

[What a shame.]

[gainedlove]

[...]

[* Nothing happened.]

[Frisk slowly uncurls, looking around as if expecting to see the shadow's form waiting to strike, but there's...nothing. Just the signs of violence left in the room, the smell of scorched drywall and Rinzler standing guard over them.]

[Somehow, it doesn't feel like a victory.]

...is it...?

[notglitching]

[Over? No. Not with the threat still active. Certainly not when Chara's actual location is still a complete [unknown]. Rinzler glowers after the dark patch, noise rattling out a harsh growl before finally, the weapons in his hands go dark.

He turns to Frisk, hand extending with their white-lit disk. They can't see the stare behind his mask, but it won't drop until they take—and dock—the backup.

Don't lose it.]

[gainedlove]

[Frisk blinks, and looks down at the offered disk. That's...right. He grabbed it.]

[After a long moment, they remember to take it from him, and slide it into place on their back.]