Until It's Safe to Go 7

Flowey Centric: Cardinal

Rated M

Trigger Warnings: Depictions of cruelty and bullying, detailed descriptions/depictions of genocide, depiction of experimental suicide.

There was a concept that he'd heard his father- rather, King Asgore- say to his royal scientist once. He'd said that the more you killed, the easier it became to detach yourself from it, and eventually it was second nature, something not as natural as breathing but natural like completing a puzzle to get around the Underground.

If that were the case, he could justify why he felt so apprehensive now.

These children were assholes, of course. They'd tried pulling him up from the ground, declared multiple times that he didn't belong there, stepped on him or his roots more times than he could count, but was murder still justifiable? He had a theory he'd been wanting to test out for quite some time, and this was the only way to do it with the ideal victims (because if he messed up, at least the Underground had one less set of idiots running around), but the consequences were still hefty.

"Hey look, it's that flower freak!"

"Didn't get enough yesterday, you weed?!"

No. Not yet. He wasn't ready.

The two wolves and the Gyftrot towered over him, the largest canine's claws extending as he stepped out one of his roots that inevitably stuck out against the icy landscape. He yelped despite trying to appear tougher than he felt, his petals wilting back as the Gyftrot laughed and reared up, his hoofs pinning him backwards.

"Oh, look, he's going to cry!" The female wolf barked out out a sadistic laugh. "You want some MERCY, you little freak?"

"Pl-please..." No! He'd sworn to himself he wouldn't allow this ever again, and yet here he was in tears when they hadn't even begun their real onslaught!

"Why don't you beg for it?" She snarled with a grin. "I want to see you whine and beg right here where everyone can see!"

No adults were around, of course. These children were the type of bullies that hid behind pretty smile and politeness around their parents, and the second they were left to their own devices they showed their true colors. Other children loved hanging around the area, and now they were circling around the little group. Some of their eyes were sympathetic, some were malicious, but nobody did anything to intervene. Somehow, that pissed him off more than his tormentors.

"I...I'm not going to beg for you." In his mind his voice sounded strong, and while externally it was squeaky, he'd still made himself say it.

"Oh yeah?" The male wolf scoffed and jabbed his claws deep into the main source of his roots. "Then don't go crying to anyone for what you want us to do to you."

"P-pah! Put me down!" He inevitably cried and let out a scream as he was uprooted. The world felt full of fire and he could feel himself slipping in and out of consciousness; he saw a flash or two of his SAVE space.

Yes, these children definitely deserved it, now more than ever.

The pain made it hard to aim, but he knew he'd hit one of them by the way someone yelped and he was dropped to the ground. Immediately he crawled his way over to his root foundations, tears dripping from his eyes as he painstakingly fused himself back in with his magic and lifted his battered body. The male wolf was rubbing the back of his head and snarling at him, but now that he was secured back to his most comfortable position, he found it a lot less intimidating as the determination began pumping through his tiny form.

"M...my name is Asriel Dreemur," he huffed out with the angriest glare he could conjure. "I...Am the prince of this world. A-and since...I AM a prince...I've decided this timeline is better off without you miscreants."

Surely there was something else he could say, something to really drive the weight of what he was about to do home, but he couldn't think of it at the moment and the Grftrot looked ready to jump on him, so he simply began the FIGHT. It didn't take long at all; it was just a matter of surrounding his SOUL with his petal-shaped bullets and slamming them through it until it finally snapped. His dust sprinkled across the icy ground, blending in beautifully as the barriers and darkness faded from his vision.

He found the looks of horror on the dead monster's little friends' more satisfying than he thought he would.

"You...You sick bastard! You freak!" The female wolf choked out. "I...I'll kill you...I'LL KILL YOU!"

She was even easier to slaughter than the Grfytrot; she was the type of monster who kept her HP low out of cockiness, and her attacks were hardly commendable in form regardless. The male wolf stared at him for a long moment after she was gone before tearing off in the other direction, which gave him an interesting set of choices: To mercy or to murder anyway.

The old him would have hit MERCY without a shred of doubt. Then again, the old him would have never even considered vanquishing his enemies, but something about this form made it easier to no longer feel things like compassion or empathy. This wolf was his enemy, and his roots still throbbed from his being torn from the ice for nothing more than their entertainment.

With all that considered, this was hardly a dilemma.

Almost immediately after exiting the FIGHT, he noticed one of the spectator's screaming for her mother desperately. He wondered what would happen as soon as the adults knew; nobody recognized him or believed he was Asriel Dreemur, and given how ageless he appeared, they likely wouldn't assume he was still very young. Regardless of his heritage, they'd still notify the Royal Guard and drag him into his father's Judgement Hall to be executed or locked away forever.

The kindest option now was to manually RESET the timeline, and nobody would ever have know what had happened. If he was being honest with himself, he'd much rather live in a world without the harassment for as long as he pleased. None of those pathetic spectators had bothered to help him the countless amounts of time he'd been going through his personal hell for no reason, so the thought of the girl tattling now shoved him into the cold, numb mindset he'd been avoiding since he woke up no longer himself.

"Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you~" He manipulated the roots beneath her and seized her ankles, dragging her closer to him while the others screamed and tried to either back away or run. "You little bastards are going to pay for your 'pacifism' today. If you're smart, you'll remember it next timeline, so try and keep up!"

Dust was sticky. He was always rubbing it off in the snow or blowing it off by utilizing the vents in Hotland now, but it was lovely compared to the misery caused when the Underground was alive. Not everyone he killed was bad or really deserved it, but they'd become too afraid of him for him to keep them around without feeling tinges of guilt for taking away their loved ones. He'd even tried to ignore the good children, the babies who cried for their parents or siblings, long enough for them to cope, but they were too much responsibility for him to bear alone.

The hardest monster to attempt to kill was his father. He'd slid into the castle from behind and shot at him desperately, but he'd fled before the massive king was able to retaliate. The only way to demolish him was to get help, so he'd gone to his mother- rather, Former Queen Toriel- and convinced her with a lot of tears and fake hysteria that he'd finally gone insane and had murdered his kingdom. After doing something like that, it wasn't impossible to watch them slay each other.

He was completely alone now. Unlike when he'd first been this way, however, he was enjoying it.

...

How long had he been a flower? Regardless, never in all his time being this way did he think he'd cease enjoying being liberated from those who he'd grown to hate, but he did.

The silence was the main problem. He'd done about everything he could think to fill it: Screaming until he was too exhausted to continue, blaring the ancient music from every outlet he could find, sealing himself down in the elements so it felt familiar, but it was beginning to make him unhinged. If there was anyone to snap at, he would a thousand times over.

That was the other part. It got so boring with no one around to bother him or make his day a little better. Even their dusty remains sank into the ground they stuck to and crystallized, and seeing that made it impossible for him to burrow back down lest he trigger the memories in a negative fashion. He wanted to believe he had no reason to feel bad for murdering everyone- he'd found life to be easier when he remained in his numb state- but he had murdered everyone. Looking at them and being reminded most of them were innocent was just painful.

"I guess it's about time I join you all, huh?" He noted out loud as he stared up at the remains of the Underground. "Things...Need to be different this next timeline. I don't really want to go through all this trouble again, and besides, I miss some of you. So try not to be bad this time, okay? Good!"

Death didn't really hurt as much as he thought it would. The pellets stuck fiercely for a moment, and then he was back at his SAVE screen with his body unscathed and his familiar options glowing in front of him like beckons of freedom.

RESET

Few monsters could change as much as he had over the years, even when it was for their own benefit to do so. The bullies were still cruel as if nothing had ever happened to encourage them to do otherwise, the bystanders were still useless, and the kinder community members were still consistent in watering him and allowing him to hide in their homes or businesses when he was harrassed.

"Hey kid," he mused as he perched in one of the warmer patches of snow slush he'd found in Snowdin. "I have a question for you."

The small skeleton looked up with one eye open; he'd clearly been sleeping before he spoke to him, but he was the only decent audience convenient. "what's up?"

"Do you think the worst person can change?" He couldn't bear to look the youth in his eye sockets now. "If they just try, can they become good again?"

The other monster seemed to consider it for a few long moments before giving him a lazy grin. "sure. good people change for bad all the time, so why can't the opposite happen?"

Optimistic. The feeling had long since drained itself from his capacities, but it was nice to see it live on in someone else.

"Interesting," he simply replied. "Go back to sleep now."

"kay."

This child had a point; he'd been a good person once, a long time ago. He couldn't keep that title in good faith anymore, but maybe he could be more than decent this next timeline. He could do everything in his extensive powers to make everyone's lives easier, and then nobody would have a reason to harass him further.

Would that really erase the sins of the last timeline? Asriel decided it was worth a shot.

...

As it turned out, a pacifist timeline got boring in the end as well.

The bullies no longer bothered him; they were too indebted to him by him helping fix the wolves' parents' broken marriage and by giving Grftrot endless pep talks until he believed himself.

That also meant nobody bothered him, and while he enjoyed the constant kind treatment, it reminded him a little too much of who he used to be. Back when he was Asriel Dreemur, he'd figured out with time that the locals were only generous despite their political views because they feared the wrath of his parents. The only reason they were being kind now is because they thought he was some kind of saint who would have a band of loyal followers to give them hell if they messed up; it was all conditional, not because they themselves were good monsters.

"I don't think I get it, kid." He decided to speak with the young skeleton again as he munched on a complimentary Nice Cream. "Good people aren't really good unless someone is good to them, but bad people don't always need a reason to be bad. Where's the balance?"

"there isn't any." His acquaintance shrugged and propped himself up on the wall. "guess that's why we have to decide who we are despite it. i think i like this better than last time, though."

This statement sent a surge of determination through him; could there finally be someone else who understood the timelines? "Last time?"

"you know what i mean." Something flickered in the boy's eye, something blue and clearly very, very dangerous. "don't play dumb with me, Flower. just don't do it again or you might have a bad time."

So he did know, then. He was knew everything, and he'd figured out he was the one behind it. This brought a crazed grin to his face as he set back onto his roots, preparing to shoot underneath the surface before any more trouble could come of it.

"Really now?" He chirped as the numbness dimmed his sense of regret. "Well then. I guess we'll just have to see! Toodles!"

Perhaps the timelines were finally going to be interesting after all.

Asriel Dreemur was dead. He died when the humans above wounded him fatally for something he didn't do, and even when his SOUL came back in the form of a flower, he was unable to feel as he had before, and eventually it became nearly impossible to feel at all. Even if he was alive by determination, he was dead inside, so he wanted a new name to completely disassociate from his weaker, more tear-prone first form.

That skeleton had called him "Flower". That was primitive, but something based off of that could work. Something that made him seem unsuspecting when he was being kind, but could easily be a name people cursed when trying to avoid his damnation.

"OOPS!" He'd been so busy thinking he didn't remember to look before popping back up, and he'd evidently alarmed the other young skeleton that lived in Snowdin. "SORRY ABOUT THAT, FLOWER!"

Hearing the cocky little one saying it was irritating, but somehow hearing this practical baby say it was worse. "That's not my name, you imbecile."

"OH! WELL, SORRY ABOUT THAT!" The youth looked ahead and broke into a wider grin. "BUT I CAN'T STAY TO CHAT; SANS SAID WE ARE a SPECIAL DINNER TONIGHT FOR MY BIRTHDAY! SEE YOU AROUND, FLOWE- I MEAN..FLOWE...EY! YEAH! SEE YOU AROUND, FLOWEY!"

Flowey. Innocent. Childlike. Cursed in the right context. Mocking in nature when they found out who he really was. It was perfect in almost every sense of the word, so he smirked and went to RESET this meaningless timeline with his new, perfect title:

Flowey the Flower.