Deathmatch is not True Pacifist

A pun-loving skeleton, a demonic child with red eyes, a decrepit scientist lost to the fragments of time and a formerly soulless crown prince of a monster kingdom sit down to play some video games.

Asriel was highly convinced he had been selected to star in some kind of cruel joke, although who it was truly targeted at, or why he ever deserved such a fate, he could not tell. Someone had to have been laughing, however, and he made absolutely sure to find and have a stern talking to whoever committed this atrocity.

Right after the current batch of popcorn was ready.

"Come on..." he grumbled, briefly folding his long, fuzzy ears over his eyes. The less he could see of the microwave counter, the quicker the time would pass, he hoped.

He leaned forward and let his head rest on the counter. The waiting was always the most boring part, but it was such a short period that it would have been pointless to leave in the interim. Not to mention he would have risked burning a popcorn, something he had been sternly warned against.

A decidedly off-key humming caught his ear, followed by sounds of shuffling movement. Asriel hardly even needed to look back and see the blue jacket, to precisely know the owner.

"Sans, please stop hogging the sauce." he said upon hearing the fridge open and close once again. An unmistakable gulp followed his words, signaling the thief hardly cared about the request. "Seriously, that's all Mom sent and we haven't even opened up the chips yet."

"sorry kid, toriel's cooking just fires me right up." Sans breathed, rather deeply for a skeleton of his constitution.

Whether it was due to the spicy sauce, or any other possible reason, Asriel didn't even attempt to guess. He was highly confident he was better off not knowing. The skeleton walked over to him and started watching the slowly expanding popcorn bag.

"can you promise not to add hair to this batch?"

"Sans, I have hair over my body!" the young prince said, glaring at the skeleton.

"and i love being on the sauce, what can you do?" Sans extended his hands, grinning like always.

The lowering intensity of pop and the loud chime of the finished microwave cut off any further points of negotiation, to the skeleton's great amusement. Asriel grumbled several words under his breath, though he wasn't quite sure what all of them meant. They were often used by angry people though, and that was knowledge enough for the situation. Sans winked and exited the kitchen, leaving the prince to grab a bowl and fill it up like a the only good person in this entire house he was.

Defying the rule of communal snacking, he sneaked a couple pieces in before everyone else. Finding them perfectly well popped, he grabbed the full bowl and trotted back into the living room, where the others had been waiting. Sans was still busy hooking up the console, but Asriel's attention was almost immediately diverted by a soft laughter.

The person known as W.D. Gaster, who according to Sans a brilliant scientist before an unfortunate accident displaced him from existence, was standing by the large sofa they would all gather on shortly. The cracks over his skull, hollow hands and robes that resembled either living darkness or gravity-defying oil, didn't grant him a very reassuring appearance, though that hardly seemed like a problem to his one and only audience: Asriel's very own darling sibling, Chara.

Going against pretty much everything the goat monster has ever known about the human, Chara was laughing quite perkily to whatever Gaster was telling them. No words were conveyed, but the deliberate hand-motions the skeleton used filled in just about all the blanks. Chara seemed to understand every single word, and was leaning against the couch arm, listening without a hint of boredom or malice. Their red eyes were glinting playfully, and even their stance was completely relaxed and calm.

The knife holster strapped was something that still concerned Asriel though, as his sibling never clearly answered whether it was a toy, or a real knife. They would always just smile in the familiar way that made the monster's fur stand on its edge and back off the topic indefinitely.

"alright everyone, settle down." Sans called, getting everyone's attention.

He sat down on the other end of the sofa, careful to put some well-needed distance between him and Chara. Neither were entirely sure which one of them were more in danger. Asriel chose to diffuse the potentially volatile situation by taking place next to Sans. Upon Gaster's hand-signed request, Chara immediately let them have their place though and shifted over to Asriel. They were in a highly good mood apparently, something the monster found relaxing for now. They each reached out for a controller, quickly getting accustomed to the basic layout, before all hell would break loose.

Well, all of them except Gaster.

The skeleton seemed to understand the mechanism quite well, but due to the sizable holes in his hands, found it slightly difficult to get a decent enough grip.

"Can I help?" Chara asked, leaning over. They carefully adjusted the controller to slot its protruding edges into the holes. It wasn't perfect, but it at least allowed him to hold it steady.

[T H A N K  Y O U]

"How does he to that?" Asriel asked, pointing.

"Wow, that's pretty rude." Chara raised a brow.

"But I-"

"okay, so we'll need to form teams of two." Sans cut in. "and we'll be playing against each other in this game. how's your twitchy-finger, Gaster?"

[R E A D Y  T O  S H R E D]

"i knew you wouldn't let me down."

"Oh, so that's what you're playing at, Comedian?" Chara's grin grew wide. The thought of demolishing both skeletons into whimpering wrecks was an enticing thought. They turned to Asriel, cracking knuckles in anticipation. "You ready to show they how it's done, partner?"

Partner...

"I'm with Gaster!" Asriel stated, though his voice was somewhat shaky.

The scientist shrugged, seeing no issue with that. Chara and Sans were definitely more at odds with the decision, but decided to postpone turning game night into a corpse party. The skeleton booted up the game and once they assembled their respective teams, they were immediately dropped into the battlefield. Most of them, besides Sans, were unfamiliar with some of the mechanics, but the objective was fairly straightforward: destroy the enemy team.

It did not take long for the momentary peace to collapse under this terrible responsibility.

Asriel was surprisingly the first to make his objections vocal, as Gaster swooped in front of him and stole the weapon pickup he had been eying.

"Hey, why are you hoarding weapons? I could use some of those, too!" he grumbled. His partner just continued his persistent silence though. At least, on a verbal level.

[Y O U  C A N ' T]

"That's just not fair. What am I supposed to do with just a pistol?" Asriel groaned, only to snort loudly in anger, as Chara had snuck behind him and replaced his lung tissue with a knife. With his success ratio was plummeting to lower lows every second.

[I  W O U L D  T A K E  E V E N  T H A T]

"hey, Chara." Sans lowered his voice to a near-whisper, turning briefly to his teammate. Asriel wondered why he even bothered lowering his voice, when he was sitting right next to him anyway. His sibling chose not to care much for whatever he had to say though, far too occupied with repeatedly hunting down Asriel. "hey. Chara. Chara. demon?"

"What is it?" Chara groaned, frustrated by his constant questions.

"bad times are coming." the skeleton announced, perfectly on time with a grenade blowing up in the human's face, killing them instantly.

"What the-" they spluttered, red eyes flashing in abject anger. "Are you serious?"

"i warned you. you didn't listen." Sans shrugged, though his grin was all-too-telling.

Chara grit their teeth, but continued playing, albeit with a growing fury towards his own teammate. Asriel was quite happy for the distraction though, as it allowed him to slowly creep into the enemy base and raid them for all kinds of valuables. Although he still was armed with less than a toothpick, compared to Gaster's ghastly arsenal, he took some victory in sneaking up towards Sans, aiming for a quick and decisive-

Blast to the face.

"How did you know?" the goat monster asked with quite a lot of frustration.

"lucky guess." Sans lied, quite amused. "should I keep out of your hair?" he added, making Asriel red with molten fury.

[K I N D L Y  S T O P  B E I N G  S O  B A D]

"Whatever." he said, returning to life soon after. Just a couple steps later though, he fell upon strategically placed landmines. The ensuing explosion reduced his body mass to a mere 5% of its original size.

[P L E A S E  R E F R A I N  F R O M  G E T T I N G  D U N K E D  O N]

"hey, Chara." Sans spoke up again, over the two teammates, or rather just Asriel arguing.

"Oh, no you don't..." Chara started spinning around with their character, trying to make out where the skeleton would attack from. All four sides seemed fine and the sky was clear. Everything seemed perfectly fine.

"bad times are coming."

Except for another landmine, this time well within their own base.

Chara was blown to little tiny shreds, even though they barely if at all stepped out of the protective confines of their high-powered human body.

"Bones, you little-"

Asriel bleated in absolute frustration, as he died yet another in a rather pointless fashion. He just couldn't get the hang of it and his anger was quick to distract everyone else.

"What was that?"

[S K I L L. S O R R Y  I F  U N F A M I L I A R  W O R D]

"And what do the hands even mean?!" Asriel whined, signaling he had previously not understood even a single sentence of what Gaster was trying to convey.

It was all just these whispering, otherworldly symbols.

[S U G G E S T  C R O S S W O R D S  I N S T E A D]

"heeeey. hey Chara. you know what's coming?"

"Smiley, I swear I will-" the human froze up as a point-blank shotgun slug ended their life for good.

The next moment passed in stunned silence, only for Chara to suddenly spring forward and completely sever the cord for Sans' controller, before anyone could even gasp. This also confirmed Asriel's fear about the knife, but it also filled him with the relief of a good decision, as at least Chara was mad at someone else, instead.

Sans' smirk grew thrice that moment. He gazed straight at the human and with a single motion, pushed the cable input right out of the machine. It seemed to have been a very peculiar model, unlike the rest of them.

"wireless." the skeleton mused, barely resisting several bouts of intense chuckling. "bad times are coming." he started humming again, further bringing the blossoming conflict closer to a boiling point.

Thankfully, the match seemed to have ended, though nobody had really checked to see who has won. Asriel sighed, using his own controller to flick through the menus, ignoring everyone else glaring daggers in every possible direction. Another game mode quickly caught his eyes though, as it boasted a slightly different pace.

"How about this?" he asked, directing their attention to the glowing 'Horde Mode' menu option. "This way we're all on the same side."

Several tense moments had to pass before Sans and Chara were even remotely ready to play again, but the prospect of survival, but for points, ticked their competitive spirit a little. Gaster, on the other hand, hardly even seemed to take into account the slowly developing murder scene, and has just been waiting for a decision on how to continue.

Thankfully, the rapidly escalating horde mode that was unleashed upon them at least quickly forced everyone to cooperate. The increased number of monstrosities against them at least helped with the brewing animosity, though Asriel knew better than to assume they were already done with it.

"snack break?" Sans asked after a little while, glancing at the rest of them. In a rather shocking change, even Chara just nodded in a near-polite measure, along with the ever-incomprehensible Gaster. Only Asriel seemed out of place, who was enjoying the game just a little bit too much.

"Come on, you're all taking a break now?" he growled, mashing the buttons, one after another.

"Hungry." Chara shrugged.

[F A M I S H E D]

"the game will still be here in 10 minutes, prince." Sans added, stretching a bit.

"We can't stop now." the goat monster stated firmly. A grin took hold of his mouth, quickly growing in size and malevolence by the second. The overall look fit his former persona much better, but that was no his primary concern for the moment being. He looked up again, a dark determination brewing in his heart.

"After all, in this game, it's kill or be killed."

The line, which even Gaster seemed to know from somewhere did manage to elicit some reaction. All three of them stopped whatever they were doing and gazed at Asriel in solemn silence. For a moment, the air grew chilly and the atmosphere quite heavy, especially as the young Boss Monster reveled in the power of his words.

That was before all of their faces twisted into pitying frowns, though.

"dude, too soon."

"That was really lame, Asriel."

[A B S O L U T E L Y  D I S G R A C E F U L]

Asriel looked over them one by one, his head sinking under his shoulders. His face turned beet-red from shame and repressed anger, humiliated beyond simple words. He reached up and pointed at all of them, one by one.

"I hate all of you..." he mumbled, quitting the game.