Chapter Text
As the dark red of human blood spilled once more onto the ground before the Barrier, Flowey rejoiced in the sheer thrill of victory.
Of course, he’d felt some sense of this before, in many of his playthroughs, but it had been dulled by his lack of a SOUL. Now, with six SOULs—no, seven—he was almost overwhelmed by how much he could feel.
So many emotions at once. Pride, accomplishment, excitement, anticipation. Before today, he’d only been able to mirror those feelings, basking in the pale shadows he found. And even then, since he’d started running out of new and interesting ways to mess with the inhabitants of the Underground, he’d realized he was feeling those less and less.
He’d been on the verge of total apathy when that human had fallen into the Underground, and suddenly, so many things he’d only dreamed of seemed to be in his grasp. Dreams of finally killing the old, foolish king! Dreams of ultimate power! And some part of him, the one that he’d buried deep down, dreamt of the Surface.
Now, thanks to that human, he had two out of three, and there was nothing stopping him from sweeping out into the surface world, and making every living being on its face experience the true meaning of suffering.
They’d certainly put up a fight, that human. He could understand why, given what he remembered of the world now just behind him. He turned and gazed at the Barrier, shimmering in the twilight. With so much power in him—so much DETERMINATION— it looked incredibly fragile. He could break it with a single touch.
...
And yet...
For the first time in a long while, Flowey felt a sting of sentimentality. He’d been in the Underground for so long. He couldn’t just leave it behind to go kill all the humans.
No. He’d kill everyone down here, first. Just for old times’ sake.
Flowey shut off the light from his screen, and the chamber was plunged into darkness. He used a vine to open the door just a crack and cried out, in the king’s voice, “Guards! The human is dead, and I have broken the Barrier!”
The voice echoed in the halls of the castle for a minute before he heard the quick, excited pattering of several sets of feet.
“Your Majesty! Is it true?”
“Oh my gods, can it be?”
“I want to see!”
Can’t have that. “No!” Flowey imitated, making the voice a little more hoarse. “I need to make sure it’s safe for us... and... I don’t want you to see me like this...” He put just a hint of horror and shame into the tone to make it more believable.
“Oh,” the voices said, suddenly filled with sorrow and understanding. Gullible idiots. Then, one asked, “Should we get the rest of the citizens ready to leave?”
An excellent suggestion. “Yes. Send them through, one at a time. No more than that, do you understand?” He paused for a moment before justifying, "It'll make the migration easier."
There was the clanking of armor as the guards presumably stood at attention. “Yes sir!” They chorused, and Flowey closed the door again with trembling vines. He felt so excited.
He felt so alive.
——
“Nyeh! Come on, Sans! We’re going to see the Surface, and you’re dragging your feet?”
Papyrus stared down at Sans, who gave him a sleepy smile. “I dunno, bro. Getting me up in the middle of the night and making me walk from Snowdin to New Home is a pretty big feat already.”
“Ughhh, Sans!” Papyrus sighed, before shaking his head. “You know what? I will allow your puns, for nothing can ruin the Great Papyrus’s mood today!”
“Heh, excited?”
Papyrus laughed gleefully. “Incredibly so! I’ll finally be able to drive a racecar! And there will be so many humans to be friends with! As a matter of fact, when I see the small human, I’m going to give them a big hug to thank them for letting us all out!”
Sans scratched his vertebrae, his expression suddenly unreadable. “Yeah, well... they might be busy, you know? They’re probably gonna be the ambassador for monsters, and so I bet they’ve already gone down to the other humans to let them know we’re coming.”
Papyrus scoffed. “Too busy for a hug from the Great Papyrus? Ha, that will be the day! I bet--”
Before Papyrus could say anything else, a pair of guards stopped them. With a start, the two brothers realized they were already at the doorway to the Barrier chamber. Sans grinned at Papyrus. “You ready, Pap?”
“I was born ready!” Papyrus shouted, and the guards lifted their spears to allow him access. This was it. He was going to see the Surface! Absolutely ecstatic, he rushed into the chamber without a second thought. Then, the door closed behind him, and he was immediately surrounded by darkness.
Well, that was odd.
“Wowie, I can’t see a thing! Did you know the Surface would be so dark, Sans?”
A brief pause. “Sans?” When no reply came, Papyrus felt the slightest trickle of anxiety, before it was stifled with knowing frustration. “Is this one of your pranks, Sans?”
“Howdy!” A voice that was not Sans’ answered.
Immediately Papyrus felt more at ease, because he knew that voice! “Hello, Flowey!” Papyrus said cheerfully, attempting to stumble toward the source of the sound. His path was somewhat impeded by the large amounts of powdery sand on the ground. “Do you know where the light switch is in here?”
“Sure do, friend! Let me shed a little light for you.”
There was a short, buzzing click, and then a large rectangle of staticky light appeared, hovering high above the chamber floor. When the static resolved, Papyrus could see Flowey, who appeared to be much larger than he’d been the last time Papyrus had hung out with him.
“How’s that?” Flowey giggled, his appearance flickering in and out slightly.
“Very tall,” Papyrus said almost meekly, suddenly overcome with a mild sense of vertigo. Then he shook his head, and he smiled brightly again. “I didn’t know flowers could get growth spurts! Congratulations, my friend!”
“Hee hee! Thank you, Papyrus. That’s not the only thing that’s changed about me, either!”
A beat of silence passed, and when Flowey didn’t elaborate, Papyrus cleared his throat and politely changed the subject. “Er, where is everyone? Have they already gone up to the Surface?”
Flowey chuckled again, but this time, there was a dark undertone to the sound, as though Flowey had two voices, and one was pitched much lower than the other. “Nope! They’re all right here!”
The amount of light from above increased, and when Papyrus looked around confusedly, the first thing he saw was...
Oh my god.
There were piles of dust everywhere, carpeting the cave floor, so much so that it reached up to just below Papyrus’ ankles. He felt as though he couldn't breathe, overcome with an intense wave of fear, then dizziness and nausea, and the world seemed to shift and pitch.
“Whoa there, friend!” He heard Flowey say, and something large brushed up against him from behind, steadying him before he could collapse. “You don’t look so good, hee hee!”
“Flowey, I—” Papyrus took a shaky breath in, feeling tears begin to prickle at the edge of his eyesockets. “I—I don’t understand! What happened here?”
Flowey laughed again. “I wouldn’t worry about that. You should be more concerned about what’s going to happen to you.”
Whatever had been supporting Papyrus from behind suddenly wrapped tightly around his waist, and he let out a panicked yelp as he was lifted high into the air. He squirmed in its grasp, panicking when he noticed said grasp was an enormous green arm, covered in leaves and thorns, and bigger than a tree trunk by far.
He squirmed frantically in the iron grip, trying to get free, before he abruptly slowed and connected the dots. Even in his horrified state of grief and terror, Papyrus was as quick as ever at solving puzzles, and it was easy to put two and two together. Teeth chattering, he asked, “O-oh! Is this one of the, um, new changes too?” He tried to force a laugh, wiping away the beginnings of tears. Just don’t look down.
Flowey leaned in closer with a knowing smile. “I’ve changed in a lot of ways, friend. Did you know that I didn’t used to have a SOUL?”
Papyrus felt a foreboding shiver run up his spine. “N-no?”
“Well, Papyrus... now I have seven.”
There was a cavern-shaking rumble and a blinding flash of light, and what had been previously hidden in the dark was now fully illuminated. The first thing Papyrus saw was an enormous face with massive toothy jaws and two sets of bulging eyes. Above that, a writhing, swirling mass of vines with razor-sharp, blood-red thorns framed a giant television screen, flicking with static and split-second images Papyrus could barely catch. Above that, was a pulsing mass of wet, fleshy gray tubes that tethered Flowey to the ceiling of the cavern.
“Hush, hush,” Flowey said, a smile in his voice, and Papyrus realized that he was screaming. When he found that he couldn't stop, Flowey's grip around him shifted, and then he started rapidly shaking Papyrus around in his grasp until he had to clamp his jaws shut from the nausea. As his head spun, a thinner vine lifted his chin, and when he could focus his vision, he saw with a start that the TV screen was staring back at him with a cartoonish but horrifying grin. “When your best friend gets a new look, you’re supposed to compliment them. Aren’t you happy for me, Papyrus? I’m like a god now!”
Making a valiant effort to stop hyperventilating, Papyrus took a deep, shuddering breath in. When he felt like he could speak again without screaming, all he could faintly say was, “Big.”
Flowey laughed raucously. “Yes, Papyrus. Bigger is definitely better!” He stuck out his tongue, and from beneath the television screen, the toothy maw split open to reveal another giant, thorny vine. “Seven human SOULs will do that to you!”
That snapped Papyrus out of his daze. He looked about nervously, and upon seeing the unbroken Barrier, he asked “W-well, if you have the human SOULs, then... why is the Barrier still up? They told us that we were free, that Asgore—”
Flowey let out a humorless laugh. “Asgore, nothing. He’s dead, Papyrus. I killed him.”
Suddenly Papyrus felt dizzy again. “Y-you killed him? You can’t have, I—” I know you wouldn’t do that, but... here he was, surrounded by giant piles of dust. “...b-but he was big, and fuzzy, and k-kind, and—”
Papyrus let out a squeak as the massive hand grabbing him suddenly squeezed hard. “Asgore,” Flowey growled, “was a fool who died as he lived: a pathetic disgrace. It was merciful for me to put him out of his misery.”
As Flowey loomed above him, his expression hardened, and the hand began to squeeze even harder, testing the limits of what Papyrus’s bones could withstand. He let out a strangled groan as he heard them creak.
Flowey smiled. “I think it’s high time I do the same to you, huh?”
Papyrus’s eye lights shrunk to pinpricks as he scrabbled desperately at the hard, glossy vine constricting him. He babbled, panickedly, “N-no—please, Flowey, I—we’re friends, you’re my f-friend—”
Flowey scoffed, and the sheer dismissiveness in his tone was enough to make Papyrus’ heart break.
Just as he was sure he himself would shatter, and that this was the end...
The hand loosened.
——
Having SOULs sucked. Sure, it had been fun feeling emotions for a bit, but now, watching his favorite toy Papyrus squirm and beg for his life, he was feeling things like remorse and guilt. Flowey groaned internally: He hadn’t had issues with killing any of the monsters before Papyrus came in; he never had issues with killing Papyrus before this.
But as the SOULs inside him wriggled, and Papyrus pleaded, Flowey couldn’t find it in himself to refuse. With the strange and foreign feeling of fondness filling him, he let his grip become slack.
“I suppose,” Flowey said thoughtfully, not caring if Papyrus was listening or not, “Being all alone at the end of the world wouldn’t be much fun.”
Papyrus had been a steadfast companion for all those timelines that would have otherwise been so utterly boring. If Flowey could find a use for for that banal skeleton before, he could find a use for him now.
Ah yes, he could find a use. Because obviously he wouldn’t keep him around otherwise. Flowey didn’t get sentimental.
Refocusing on Papyrus, who was shaking and rattling in his grasp, Flowey gave him a bright smile, and felt a warmth inside him as Papyrus gave him a weak, teary smile back.
“I kn-knew you were good,” Papyrus croaked, trembling.
Flowey would’ve laughed, but before he could, the door to the chamber burst open with a BANG and a brilliant cyan explosion. When the dust cleared, there was—ugh, Sans. His eye was glowing with rage, but his expression immediately changed to something like fear—and there, that was another great, new thing—as he gazed up at Flowey’s greatness.
“Well,” Flowey let that laugh loose, a loud, chaotic noise that shook the cavern. “I don’t know about that.”
It was all too easy to send a vine the size of a ship mast sailing down toward the smiley trashbag, fracturing and shaking the ground as it missed him only by inches when Sans teleported a few feet to the left.
“No!” Papyrus yelled, beginning to squirm again.
Flowey sent out a whole thicket of vines, anyway. He didn’t bother seeing whether or not the hit landed, because he had such immense power now that they could basically run on autopilot. He shambled toward the Barrier, Papyrus in hand, and stuck his free arm through it. The Barrier shuddered and trembled around it, but allowed the passage.
“Well,” Flowey said with a wicked grin, “It’d be fun killing you again, Sans, but I’d rather just leave you here.”
Both Papyrus and Sans simultaneously cried out, “No!” but Flowey was already half-way through the Barrier. He was almost completely through when—
THUD. Flowey heard a muted yelp from the other side of the Barrier as Papyrus was pressed hard against it, as though it were plate-glass.
Oh, of course! Flowey moved back into the cavern, narrowly dodging the beam of one of those infernal blasters, and he grinned at Papyrus. “I forgot, you can’t cross through. Boy, that sure is inconvenient!”
Sans fired a barrage at the arm holding Papyrus, but it barely singed the thick carapace.
“Well, I’ll just have to let you borrow one of the SOULs!”
Papyrus balked. “W-what? No!”
“Oh yes,” Flowey grinned. He concentrated for a moment, and the SOULs flickered outside of him. “Let’s see. Should I give you the orange one? It would match your outfit pretty well, but that one’s for bravery, and you screamed like a wimp when you saw me, so—”
A row of bones swiped across the ceiling, attempting to sever Flowey’s grip on it, and it only wobbled him a bit, but all of a sudden, it hurt, and that was unusual. His karma damage was a bitch, even in this form.
“—I could give you the blue SOUL, I know how much you love blue magic, Papyrus—”
“Please, don’t!” Papyrus yelled, banging uselessly at Flowey’s iron grip. “Don’t take me away, p-please—”
Finally, it came to Flowey. “Oh I know! Green, for kindness, it’s so obvious. And,” Flowey said, smiling fondly at Papyrus, “I bet you’ll look great in my color!” He gave Papyrus a wink and a cheeky, “Try not to melt!” before grabbing the SOUL and shoving it into Papyrus’s chest cavity.
“Stop!” Sans screamed, voice cracking, as he reached out his magic to try and turn Flowey’s SOULs blue, but he only managed to grab two of them before bright green light engulfed Papyrus... who screamed and screamed like he was on fire. Geez.
“Don’t be such a baby, Pa—whoa!” Flowey actually jolted as juts of bone began to spike out of Papyrus’s head and spine, sharp enough to scratch at the tough vine, and he began to grow larger in Flowey’s grasp, and the shape of his head began to split and elongate into something like one of the Sans’s blasters, and—
This was getting weird. Better to leave now so he could get the soul out of Papyrus as soon as possible. He turned toward the exit, not bothering to look at Sans, and called out, “Welp, good enough. So long, trashbag!”
And with that, Flowey pushed through the Barrier, taking Papyrus with him.