imma make a deal with the bad wolf | backdated to early april | locked to lyseandpurge

[dustless]

They haven't visited Her in--

--well, they haven't visited her. Really ever. It didn't feel necessary, having her in their SOUL and their head. 

And maybe there was a little something in them that squirmed at the memories of being eaten. Maybe. 

But since when is Frisk ruled by fear? And even moreso, since when do they let others' fear and hate rule them? 

Never. No. They're not going to allow it, even with the Jackal's imperfect copy of them insisting otherwise, day in and day out, when they're just minding their own business; encouraging them, once Frisk mentions where they're going, to try to find a good weapon or some help to kill Judgement, to cure themselves, to save their friends.

As if their friends need to be saved from her. They don't, yet, and hopefully not ever.

"See?" they say once they get to her door, pointing. 

DANGER, POSSESSION MAY OCCUR BEYOND THIS DOOR.

That's a warning most of them would heed, they're sure--and even if they didn't...well. Frisk is aware their initial decision wasn't the smartest thing they'd ever chosen to do, and they have faith that others wouldn't waltz into her mouth after waking nightmares and absorb a SOUL-altering shard of...something. Her SOUL, maybe. They aren't entirely clear on that yet.

They don't hesitate for more than a few moments. It's not fair that they left her alone this long already--and maybe they can get replica-Frisk to become a little less insistent.

Frisk knocks on the door, firmly, three times. "Hello? I'm here now. We."  Their shadow is acting like a shadow now, right against their back, fingers gripping their shoulders and digging in enough to very nearly hurt.

They let themselves in.

Comments

[lyseandpurge]

The door creaks and shudders against Frisk's hands, pushed by a hot wind, and then throws itself suddenly open, revealing the void, the ripple of their feet against an invisible surface, the vast clouds, the radio static in their ears.

The cell's distant hum is amplified a straining in Frisk's chest, like a heartbeat fighting against suffocation. It pulses, pulses, sings.

Judgement forms out of their breath, a mist becoming a shadow becoming a shape that becomes a giant fish with four fins and four great fanged teeth, and a single eye in its mouth. It looms near them, as if centimetres from swallowing them up. The light of the cell silhouettes it with every beat.

Frisk it says, and dives, dipping its head beneath their feet. Rusted metal sword-grips graze their toes almost gently as it passes underneath.

i see you, Frisk it murmurs. i see you, fear and need; i see you, seeing me; i see you, wanting to kill me

Articulated metal plates screech against each other as they rise, and Judgement's back breaks the surface, white ripples expanding outwards, her body bent downwards like a bow. is it time?

suicide tw i guess?

[dustless]

Awesome, in the original style of the word--inspiring awe. That's what she is, that's what she does, and they can separate her from other more horrifying things by her size alone. (Reaper Bird appeared from their own noise of surprise, Endogeny was impossible to understand staring at straight-on, but they steer away from the links in their head.)

Frisk stills, refusing to flinch; their replica does not, taking a sharp step back and trying to yank them back along with them. Same fears, but one more potent than the other, an underlay of I don't want to be eaten and die contrasting with if I die then it'll be horrible and fast (and fast is all I could hope for).

Shaking their head minutely, they put a hand over their chest and press down. Their toes curl in their boots. An idle thought: they need new ones.

"That's not me. That's not really me. They're...somebody a little different. I don't want to kill you, still, promise."

[lyseandpurge]

Judgement makes no sound, but the cell beams gently, and warmth fills Frisk's torso like an acknowledgement.

no...

It sounds almost pensive in its uncertainty. i am sorry, it says at last, but also, layered over the feeling: i am waiting.

She rises slowly, and one of the rough scales of her back makes contact with Frisk's feet as she does, as if to lift them up off the invisible floor. Her tail waves lazily through the air as she begins to glide forward.

who else? she asks, and her eye is there, staring out of Frisk's eyes. i feel her. did you see her when i hid from her eyes? did you speak to her?

[dustless]

Waiting for something that won't happen. That they don't want to ever need to happen.

Their copy shivers, and Frisk's pretty sure they're going to end up bleeding with how their nails dig through their shirt and into their shoulders.

Judgement lifts them, leaving their stomach lurching. Since they saw her coming, it's not unpleasant--just a movement, stirring memories of a carnival ride from a long time ago.

Replica-Frisk makes a half-stomping motion, aborting before they could really hit her, because they're afraid and they don't know if Frisk will defend them right.

"This is...mirror-Frisk," they say, sounding slightly strangled. 'Her', not Drifter or Guardian, but they only know of the jackal being called 'it'. "They're...a dog helped make them to fight. But I don't want them to, so they won't."

[lyseandpurge]

mirror, Judgement repeats, and her senses turn through Frisk's senses. image, reflection, light. will you speak to me?

Her voice echoes through the void as she slowly rises, swimming lazily forward. Only the gentle flow of air on Frisk's skin betrays that she is moving—and the sheen of pink light on her skin fading as the cell grows further and further away.

a dog? she asks, and then she sees.

The fragment stirs in Frisk's chest, and there is a vibration like a tremor of fear. made you to fight—did not make you—from your heart and my heart sourced you, alive and ready! she has spoken to Frisk and you are her word.

She shudders, and bucks, and her four great fins shoot out into the void like harpoons, anchoring themselves in infinity and bringing her to a halt. There is nothing in sight.

Frisk—Frisk—what do they say? to fight? only that? my fate, ANUBIS, she who is the truth—gives only that?

[dustless]

The Replica wraps their arms around Frisk. Not a hug, just a motion, showing their arms and hands to sign without having to come out from behind them.

Frisk can feel them shaking against their back. It's fear, but it might be rage, too.

You're dangerous. You're the bad thing in their SOUL. You shouldn't be here, you shouldn't be, you're wrong and you want to kill the world! They need to get rid of you, but they're not, but they have to kill you.

"...I'm not going to," Frisk says coldly, after a few beats. It's harder to understand sign from behind when they're not the one making the movements.

You're just sickness.

"She's not," Frisk says, trying to shrug their arms off and failing.

[lyseandpurge]

Judgement sees and feels and knows, and in her voice there is folded the image of these signs. i know i am dangerous. i know i am a disease. i know i must die.

but not yet.

She stiffens, her spine realigning, the sound of grinding engines thrumming through her skin and streaks of pink light shooting through her rusty veins.

not till the battle is over—and the battle isn't over as long as i am alive.

With a straining crack, her fins, stretching out infinitely into the beyond, come free of their moorings, breaking off her body. Roiling black liquid churns and pours forth from the wounds they leave behind, becoming knotted black flesh, becoming conical pipes venting beams of brilliant pink.

if you were made to kill me then kill me! hit me and see if it hurts, and see if i don't dash you against the hull of the world. but you were not made for that. you are made from Frisk and without Frisk you don't mean anything.

She lurches and spins, violently, her body twisting upside-down, the abyss rotating around them, and yet gravity aligns itself with her, making her body the centre of the universe, keeping Frisk on her back. The dim light of the doorway is visible, a tiny speck in the distance, growing as she hurtles towards it, streaming shining light-blood from her sides.

you cannot hurt me. do as ANUBIS has made you to do, and let me be, until Frisk is ready.

[dustless]

"Don't--" but their voice is too small, disappearing into the noise and lights and chaos that so suddenly thunder around them.

Frisk collapses to their hands and knees, scrabbling for purchase they don't know if they need; replica-Frisk seethes and shivers and wraps their hands around their chest, burying their face in the small of their back.

There's no space for the denials bubbling in their throat or in their head, and other-Frisk doesn't have hands available to sign or any kind of mouth to make a noise, but somehow they're still screaming.

They hate her, they almost hate Frisk, she's right! They're useless and so is Frisk in this way, they won't kill her/it no matter how much they lie to themselves. They're going to die, both of them, they don't want to die don't ^kill me ^please don't ^kill us

Everything's moving too fast--they used carnival rides as a comparison before, now they're trapped on a living rollercoaster without safety bars--Frisk tries flattening themselves against Judgement's back as best they can.

"Stop it!" they shriek against her scales. Stop moving so fast so they can address the rest of what she and they just said, so they don't get sick.

[lyseandpurge]

There is a pause, like a missed heartbeat. Time stops; the world becomes like a painting before Frisk's eyes, over which a deep black spills from the corners.

Judgement manifests on their retinas, a faint pink blurriness and a slight sting. She is pain, pain, hatred, but something in her remembers to be gentle, that gentle agony is possible, that Frisk tried to teach her forgiveness.

She grasps at something that she can barely understand.

please, Frisk, she whispers, every word like a knife sliding tenderly into an open wound. please, please, go. when i am dead there'll be none of this. and i know you can do it. i know you're strong enough. i know you can kill me, and survive.

A sharp pain, and the world slips, and Judgement's body beneath them lurches forward, a half-second closer to impact.

[dustless]

Their copy is stone against their back. Frisk's heart leaps into their throat and stays there; the blurriness and stinging increase on their own.

"I don't want you to die," they whisper, or scream, or think, or weep. "There'll be none of you, either, f-for a while. You're not just being sick, you're somebody, and I'm your friend, and I don'--don' wanna kill you even if I'm killed first. You should...should...get a chance."

A pain in their chest, a pain in their mouth with teeth sinking into their lip, and they do best to acknowledge neither.

aaaaa this got a bit long ^^;

[lyseandpurge]

Judgement hesitates to speak, and the world shudders forward, another tempestuous heartbeat.

i can't stop, she says, trembling, a twinning hallucination. Frisk, none of that matters because the only way to stop me—

i know, Frisk, i know what you told me, that there is no escape. but i can die. i promise you i can die, i was born to die, because my life is a grudge and my death is a release and no one can stop me do you understand no one can stop me, not this castle, not this world, none of them can cage her again! Lights blossom like fireworks, her words making shapes in their brain, and if a shape could be a scream it would be the shape of the way she says 'cage'.

take the word that ANUBIS has given you and shatter the cell, she says. shatter the cell. free the wellspring. shatter the cell.

shatter the cell shatter the cell shatter the cell shatter the cell shatter the cell shatter the cell shatter the cell— and then the vision breaks, like a bone, bits of it puncturing skin and scattering her words like a shower of molten glass into the breathless void above them.

Judgement bursts through the doorway and impacts the opposite wall at terrifying speed, screeching as metal fractures along her spine, venting more and more explosive pink liquid from vessels within. Her cries make the floor shudder and bring down the ceiling, and everything goes black, and the world is destroyed.

There is a light.

There is a mass of oily black tendrils.

The world is a mass of oily black tendrils.

The world is a mass of oily black tendrils. Reach the light.

The world is a mass of oily black tendrils and it is swallowing Frisk. Reach the light.

The world has seized them. The world is infesting them. Reach the light.

They have become the world.

Reach the light.

= <o> =

The hallway is empty, and perfectly intact. The door to Judgement's cell is shut, and the gaps in it are choked with thick black tendrils.

[dustless]

"It does!" It matters! It matters what people can be and what she already is becoming, and they want to keep screaming it but their throat is too hot, it's scalding and warping the words into a howl of shatter the cell, shatter the cell, shatter the cel until they don't know if it's her voice or their copy's voice or their own anymore--

Anubis. A resonance. They know it now, and names are important.

Terror roars as loud as everything, their body is gone, and still Frisk is drowned and flattened and smothered.

(But not eaten. That's something.)

They inhale a plume of dust that's been left on the floor, just like them, just like the copy that's scooted to sit a few feet away and is clutching at their own head. Frisk's pretty sure they'd be crying if they had the eyes to do it with.

They cough up pink, and maybe there's some too-early black specks through it. It's not like they're paying attention to that, their thoughts are too busy warring with fear that's pumping through them, but they know something new now. Anubis, and...a cage, she said, in something a million times stronger than words. A wellspring, she said, in something aching.

Nothing can stop her, she said, in finality, and they've heard things like that before.

Frisk keeps lying on their side, staring at the black-barred door.

They can. I will, they tell her fiercely without moving their lips, because they will--for them it's that simple--and they won't kill her anyway. I refuse. There's something else they can do, and they just need to figure it out, and it could be they're starting to.

When they sit up, it might be hours later. Their copy's still siting there, now still as stone, and their hands are clutching each in their lap.

With some difficulty, and using the wall as support, they stand up and hold out their hand. "Think we're all visited out," they say, and their voice is rasping.

The rune can't show expression, but they're giving their original a filthy look. Frisk supposes they deserve it. But they grab their hand and pull themselves up anyway, and it's the copy that starts going down the hall first instead of the original.

I will, Frisk hums at the door, one more time, and then hurries to catch up before their replica's teleported back. They've gotten hurt enough today.