Getting Straight To The Good Part
Samantha Rose walked into the building, the big space was filled with stalls branded with a multitude of different brands and companies. They sold all sorts of stuff, calenders, figurines, props, t-shirts, jackets, and all sorts of other stuff you don't actually need. Her eyes went wide at the sight of so many people wearing so many different outfits.
She thought that only a small fraction of people would actually come in an outfit, but to her surprise there were much more than expected. A little over a third of the people had come dressed as something. Most of the people wearing outfits had come like her, the outfits had been put together from things hey had bought online to put together. She was Chara, the first fallen child from Undertale. She was dressed in the green jumper with a single yellow stripe horizontally across the chest. She was wearing dark brown leggings and trousers of the same colour which she had pulled up to knee height. She was also wearing black high top canvas shoes to boot. A few people were wearing goofy cardboard cut-out outfits which looked to have been DIY glued together at home. Sam didn't do anything like that, she would have felt boxed up.
Sam joined the crowd. Her friends had told her to meet them at the far left corner of the building, and from the top of the short set of stairs leading down into the main building she could see the layout. The stalls were arranged in nice uniform and easy to navigate rows which allowed enough space for a good amount of people to fit inbetween.
Sam spent a good fifteen minutes exploring the stalls, examining the merchandise they all had to sell. Quite a lot of the stalls were standard game dev shops, a few were internet corporations such as Rooster Teeth and IGN. And even fewer still were people who had managed to gain themselves their own space to sell their own goods. She came across a few of these, people who were surprisingly good at making plushies and models. She found herself surprised that people weren't selling things like Red Vs. Blue merch' free-lance.
After a while of searching she noticed a dark stall in the top right hand corner of the building.
She began to walk toward the stand and she could see it had gone very incognito. There weren't very many people interested in it. After a minute or so of travelling she came to a stop next to the stand. She had noticed it tucked away in the corner of the room, and the small amount of visitors the stand did get walked away soon after arriving with amused grins on their faces. She wondered what for? The items on sale looked pretty decent. Maybe it was the price tags. Samantha took a quick look at the small tag attached to a miniature Bolt Caster from Destiny.
"-50 Dollars?-" She took the down-sized blade by the handle and looked it over. Joints between parts were sealed perfectly, there were no clips or glue visible inbetween the handle and the hilt, even the guard and the blade were seamlessly joined together with good strength. For fifty dollars it was amazing. "-Maybe he's just honest? It's astounding how little some props like this cost to make compared to how much they're sold for.-"
The Merchant of the stand walked out from behind a stage wall wearing a dark robe and cloak. He shuffled up to the stand, his head staring at the ground so Samantha couldn't see his face. Once he reached the stand he stopped and paused for a brief moment, before tilting his head up so Sam could only just see his eyes under his brow.
"Wow." She stated. The Merchant looked up a little more and gave her a good look before he started.
"Looking for something in-particular, friend?" He said, his voice sounding low and mysterious... but obviously practised. It sounded like he had been rehearsing it for hours. The Merchant managed to keep a straight face until Samantha smirked, causing him to wince.
"Erm, no I'm just looking for now." She explained, a smile growing on her face as she noticed the Merchant squirm a little on his feet. The Merchant guy sighed heavily and tension in his shoulders was let go, allowing them to droop.
"Go on, what was it?" He asked in a bored voice. Sam chuckled, the Merchant obviously noting his failure to keep a mysterious character.
"About what? Your persona?" Sam asked. The Merchant nodded. "It sounded rehearsed, like you practised a bit too much, you know? No offence, but it wasn't very convincing. Good effort though, better than I could've done." She backed him up with a re-assuring smile, trying to inspire some confidence with constructive criticism. The guy just sighed once more, putting his face into his palms.
"Heh." He chuckled a little. "The last guy who ran this stand was really good at this, like, legit good. Guy made you believe he was some sort of cool magic salesman or something. Me? This is my first convention, and he barely gave me any time to practise before leaving me with his spot. Said he had to go on a holiday because he was getting stressed with dealing with all his victims all the time."
Sam raised an eyebrow at his choice of words.
"I dunno' either. Apparently his stuff's all magical or some bullcrap like that. Ha! I think it was just a sales tactic to go with his act, but considering how nutty he was, I wouldn't be surprised. Anyways, see anythin' you like?" He explained to the striped young woman, dropping his act to get the interaction over with.
Sam scanned the items on sale. The Bolt Caster was there with it's counterparts, the Dark Drinker and the Raze Lighter. She never played Destiny, shooters were never her thing. She heard it was supposed to be really fun, but it wore off really quickly or something like that. She only knew a few things about it from one of her friends who was a fan of shooters. On the table was a Franklin Badge, the badge given to Ness during Earthbound. The quality looked really good just like the swords. There was a small collection of well painted Warhammer and League of Legends figurines. And closer to the back was something she more easily recognised...
A toilet seat. Except this was no ordinary toilet seat, this seat had rainbows around it. Sam looked up at the Merchant quizzically.
"Like I said, lady. The guy was a bit of a nut job. Just... try not to question it." He said with an amused smile. "Still doesn't explain why you'd sell a frickin' rainbow toilet seat, though... Hehe..." Samantha heard the Merchant say to himself under his breath. She continued browsing and ignoring the technicolour toilet seat until she finally found something she was more interested in.
A heart locket. She recognised the neck adornment as Chara's Heart Locket. It just so happened that Chara was the character she was dressed up as. Her interest piqued, she flipped the small tag up to see the price.
"Thirty dollars?" She asked, unsure as to why such a small item was priced so heavily. The Merchant replied in turn.
"The red heart has a small ruby in it, expertly cut as well. There's nothing much special about the chain, but the quality of the stone bumps up the price. I can guarantee it's quality." He said confidently.
"You should do this professionally. You're really good at this." Sam said to the Merchant. He chuckled a little before continuing.
"You buyin'?" Sam stared at the ruby heart for a few moments before smiling. It was a beautiful piece, and technically it would actually finish her outfit. The heart locket was a signature of Chara, after the knife of course. However you can't walk around carrying knives everywhere you go. Because that's illegal, and she doubted the she or the real Chara would be any good in jail.
"Go on, then." She replied, pulling her wallet from the left pocket of her shorts. She pulled three ten dollar notes from a pouch and handed them over to the smiling Merchant. The Merchant took the bills and reached under his counter to a till, where several sliding and clicking noised could be heard before he stood up straight again.
"Thanks for the purchase! Just come back if the locket does anything 'magical'. Haha!" He said sarcastically. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to revise my mysterious merchant impression." He smirked before turning to go back behind the stage wall. Sam smiled and took the locket before placing it around her neck and walking away. She still had ten minutes or so before she needed to meet her friends and see what they came as. So she could probably just crowd dodge and surf through different stalls until then.
"-Whew, is it me or is it getting hot in this building?-" She stopped walking and looked down to the locket around her neck. Just to see it beginning to glow. She turned around to see the Merchant that sold her the locket was nowhere to be seen, likely revising his act like he said he was.
All of a sudden Sam began feeling nauseous, the heat becoming unbearable. She stopped someone passing by.
"E-excuse me. Where are the b-bathrooms?" The randomer turned around and pointed to the other side of the giant room, through all the people where two doors leading to the male and female restrooms were.
"Just over there." They said. "See it?"
"Y-yes, got it. Thank you." She stumbled past the person she stopped and tried to get through the crowd, but the heat coming from her chest was insane. She rapidly lost all her energy and collapsed to the ground. A crowd gathered around her as everything started to fade away, into darkness. The ruby red light from her locket was the last glow to be extinguished from her sight.
"Guh..." She muttered weakly. "Knew I shouldn't have eaten those old Duritos..."
Arthur came out from behind the stage wall having his practise interrupted by a commotion of noise, even more than usual. In front of his stand was a lot of people gathered around a single spot, they were all staring at something on the ground. There was no chance of getting through all the people to see what it was that was on the floor, but from the gaps in their legs he could make out a green and yellow striped jumper and a glowing red light of increasing intensity...
"Woah..." He said, gaping at the stuff still left on his stand. "So they really are magical!" He said in bewilderment...
Before grabbing the toilet seat and running away.
"Take me to heaven, Magic Toilet Seat!"
Self Coping Mechanisms, or How I Argue With Myself
"Hello?"
A voice echoed through one thousand miles of hallway... Or at least it felt like it. The only thing Samantha knew was some kind of odd feeling, like numbness wearing off to a sensation like pins and needles prodding lightly into her back. A dim light filtered through her eyelids to give her world a dark orange fuzzy blur.
"Hey, are you awake?"
"Hrblrbghrh..." Samantha garbled a mixture of random groaning noises from her lungs as she rolled over onto her front.
"Ah, good. I- you're awake. That's good. Maybe you can help me fix this." The voice came again, this time loud and clear as Sam woke up and came to her senses. "In fact, now I think about it I have no choice in the matter. I'm not even in my own body."
"-What? Heh, maybe they're talking about something else. I need to find--" Sam's body froze in place as she opened her eyes to see the ground covered in grass with a thin layer of leaves that had fallen from a tree. "-Hey, wasn't I just at a convention? Why am I outside?-" Sam pushed herself to her feet, only to be met with a brightly coloured field and a warming sunrise glowing over a far horizon. She looked to her right as she noticed a large tree with most of it's leaves missing. She could see more coming free as she stared.
Looking back to the horizon with nothing but a silently shocked expression, a spectre silently strode up to her side without her noticing.
"Nice view, isn't it?" Sam looked to her side with a raised eyebrow, only for it to rise even higher when her eyes were laid upon the character giving her a bemused look. Sam could only continue to stare in utter bewilderment at the ghostly figure of Chara staring back at her impatiently. "Greetings."
Sam began to pick up her breathing.
"W-what?" She blurted out. Chara cocked their head to the side as they hardened their glare.
"Hmm? Ok, since you're obviously clueless I'll have to fill you in." Chara gestured to Sam. "'That', the body you inhabit, is mine. And I'm not in it. You are, which means you've taken my body. This is a problem, and a big one. Not only am I not in my own body, but because another human is, I can't take it back without cooperation."
Sam blinked blankly at the spectre, before looking down at herself. She was wearing exactly the same outfit as she had brought to the convention. Her actual body though... Her complexion was much paler and her hair was naturally a lot darker as well. She also felt smaller and lighter.
"-W-What the hell is this?-" She thought to herself, unsure of what to say or do.
"Add the fact we're both in a completely new world means we have no clue who, what, or where anything is. You know what this means?" Chara added onto the end.
"I... You're Chara, right? You're... Asriel's friend?" Sam said, trying hard to make sense of everything. Chara's head tilted a little and they frowned in confusion.
"I... I am. Why do you care?" Chara said in suspicion. "Are you some sort of ghost? Did you steal my body from me?"
"No! At least I err, didn't take it willingly." Sam said in her defence to the ghostly clone. Chara glared intently back at her, their red eyes glowing slightly. If their expression was anything to go by, they were anything but happy with the situation. "Wait... Are you Claire?" Sam stared back at the ghost. "Is this some sort of dumb prank? Did you spike my drink? Is that what's happening right now!?" She began to yell.
"Don't get angry at me, little miss sassy. You're not the one who has to put up with being a spectre! You took my body, and now I'm just a helpless ghost!" The two angry clones gave each other furious expressions as Chara continued. "And no, I really am Chara. Which annoys me because I'm not in my own body so technically I'm not Chara! Do you know how that even feels!?"
"What? No, I ju- Grrr..." Sam growled under her breath. "Where did you put me? I know this is just some crappy joke in bad taste, tell me where I am! Now!"
"Did you even listen to me!? I have no idea! It's like a whole new world!" Chara turned around and pointed at a cottage at the bottom of a hill next to a large area of meadows. "I mean look at that!" They then pointed at some pastel coloured town in the distance. "And that. Does that look like human civilisation to you? We're on the surface so it's definitely not monsters! Just... think before you start blaming the person you just replaced!" Sam reeled back a little.
"R-replaced?" Chara's head lowered and their fringe cast a shadow over their face, allowing the red eyes to appear like dim shining lights.
"Grrrrr... You're not listening, are you? Or maybe you really are just that stupid!"
"What did you just call me?" Sam asked, threateningly. Chara's brow was like an arrow now, the anger on their face growing to frightening proportions.
"Look at me! I'm a damned ghost! I have no form! No-one but you can see me or hear me! To the outside world you're literally shouting at yourself! YOU HAVE MY BODY! I could be finding us a way out of here, but no! I'm stuck on the sidelines as some random person stumbles around being USELESS! We're stuck here!"
Silence hung in the air as Sam turned her back on the spectre and gazed out over the valley. Indeed, an inhuman town sat on the valley floor, and what looked to be the strangest cottage she had ever seen held up humbly at the foot of a gentle hill. The whole area was foreign to her, the grass was so green, the trees looked so healthy and were some kind of tree she had never even seen before. There was a road just off to her left, a dirt road, which looked to lead into the town. It winded over the bumps in the landscape in an almost picturesque manner.
"Right now... Asriel is back home, waiting for me to return from a trip to the shops. And where am I? Trapped outside of my own body, helpless to get back to him. My best friend. He'll be crushed by this." Sam heard from behind her, Chara's anger seemed to have fumed away, and now they were much calmer, and solemn. Sam sighed.
"I... I get it. If this really is true... and we're in a completely different world, then my friends will be waiting for me as well. Likewise, I think my family would grieve for weeks." There was quiet for a moment once again. "I don't even know what's going on... First I-" She stopped herself, realising what she was about to say.
"You what?" Chara asked, staring back up at their possessed body.
"C-Chara... I think I caused this to happen." Chara's glare returned for a moment, making Sam flinch under their angry red eyes... But Chara just let out a long breath and slumped back onto the ground, putting their head in their hands. "I was... dressing up, and I touched a magical item. A replica of your locket." Chara looked up with a vacant stare.
"So..." They let out a small chuckle. "You came into contact with an object connected magically connected not just to my world, but to me. And because it was you doing the magical interaction, I was torn from my body and replaced by you." Chara sat with their knees up, crossing their arms on their knees and resting their head on them. "Normally I'd call you liar, but considering the situation it sounds like a good explanation."
"I have no idea what any of that meant, but yeah, I guess."
...
"Why don't we try to find out where we are? Maybe, If the inhabitants have magic they can help both of us go home. In our respective bodies."
Chara sat in thought for a moment.
"I... can tell there's some sort of magic in this world. It's different to my world's magic thoug. Much more uniform and less flexible. Back home, the form of your magic was limited only by imagination. If you could think of it you could do it, as long as you had enough power. Humans lost their magic over time, since we lost use of it. We rarely used it for domestic purposes and technology sort of outstripped combat magic. My magic is purely combat based, and it comes from my intentness to kill... If I really wanted to take something down, my strength is increased with my Determination to win." Sam turned back to Chara. Who looked up at her. "I'd want a weapon ideally. Best a short bladed weapon like a kitchen knife. That is if I wanted to fight effectively. Not that I can do much like this. In fact..."
Chara stood up with a smile.
"I'd like to test something on you." Sam nope'd immediately, know what Chara was capable of.
"Oh no, I know who you are and what you can do. I am not giving a body to someone who would murder innocent people with someone else's body!" Sam pointed at the ghostly figure. Chara's smile faded quickly.
"How do you about my plan? I haven't even told Asriel about it yet..." Chara narrowed their eyes. "You know more than you let on, my friend. You know more about me, about my 'family' and what I intend to do. Tell me, how much do you know?"
"Enough. Just know that I know of your exploits much farther into the future than your little escapade into your village. Do you even know what would happen to you if you go through with it? The plan would fail, Asriel would die. You would put a small child at risk of death for your own plans. Just why do you want monsters to go free, hmm? Is it pity? Or do you just want humans dead, you know the monsters still harbour a grudge and you hate humanity. It all connects far too well, Chara. We'll get out of this, and when we do you'll forget all about your little plan and live a happy life."
Chara's left eye twitched.
"I would take control of Asriel, with my soul and his I could take all the other six souls needed to break the barrier. I would free the monsters not out of pity or some sort of spite, but because it's what is right..."
"'What is right'... Yeah right. What would happen to you after you take control of Asriel? Would you keep his body and use it to your own ends? You're a sick, twisted child, Chara." Sam silenced the conversation with that. Another moment of staring continued before Chara spoke up.
"Very well... I can make some, changes, to my plans. When you put it that way, maybe I am twisted. But so what? I'm determined to free those I care about. It's not as if I plan to kill them all afterwards, right?" Chara sighed. "Perhaps we can strike a deal. You're obviously the less 'twisted' of us, and maybe that makes you better at reasoning. And I have to admit it, we'll need deals, friends and reason more than violence to get out of this. You can inhabit my body when all is well and we have nothing to fear. But if anything goes wrong, and our or others lives are in peril, you hand me my body back until the threat is dealt with. It'll be useful to have a second pair of eyes in a fight. But for that I'd need to test if I can get my body back with a method I was practising for my excursion plan. What say you?"
Sam looked down at the ground, before seeing Chara's hand come up, ready for a hand shake. It was true, Samantha was no fighter. She'd played Undertale's genocide run, she knew Chara was no slouch, in a fight they could kill nearly anything with enough motivation to do so. Sometimes dropping incredibly powerful foes in a single swing, just look at Mettaton. The deal sounded good, and it seemed Chara really did want to get out of the whole situation in one piece. But could she trust them...
"Ok." Sam brought her hand up to meet Chara's, only for Chara to move their ghost hand back a little. Sam looked at the spectre in confusion.
"One condition. What's your name?"
"Samantha. My friends call me Sam."
"You will refer to yourself as Chara in public, and not Sam. You're in my body, the body of Chara after all. Deal?"
Chara moved their hand back in and waited for the shake. It only took a moment for Samantha to make her final decision, it was either cooperate with one of the most untrustworthy kids in video gaming history or be trapped in another world forever. She placed her hand in Chara's and they shook on the deal for a moment.
"Now lemme' give this a try..." Sam gasped has her hand glowed red with magic and she felt a tugging sensation on her entire body. She was pulled over, or it felt like it. She landed on the ground with a heavy thud... in her own body. Or at least a ghostly form of it. She noticed her body was translucent and she could see through herself to the ground.
"Woah, this is weird." She slooked herself over to realise that she was still dressed as Chara.
"Really? You were dressed as me?" She heard from behind her. She stood up to her full height, about twenty inches taller than Chara's real body.
"Yeah... about that..."
"Well, I don't want to hear it. Even if I'm slightly flattered that you'd dress as me for some reason, it doesn't make it any less weird that you are literally dressed as me."
"Okay, so we can switch bodies and forms now. Your point is proven. We might need to get directions and talk to people when going places, so I'll need your body for a while."
"..."
"Chara..." Sam started angrily, crossing her arms.
"We err, might get into a fight?" Chara shrugged at their attempt to get Sam to let her keep he body. Samantha was not convinced however, and began to tap her foot lightly on the ground.
"Fine! Fine. But if we get ambushed and you aren't fast enough to react don't blame it on me."
"Whatever. We need to find someone who can help us, and that cottage is the closest building to us. We should find help there, okay?"
"Oh, I bet you need help."
"... I'm going to hate this..."
