LISA: The Fallen [Undertale x LISA]

I have written something new, the result of days of idle reading and writing. After playing Undertale and a little too much LISA: The Painful, I've come to write this to slay this beast.


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Disclaimer: Lisa is property of Austin “D.L.” Jorgensen. Undertale is property of Toby Fox. I have lost my God damned mind.


Joy. Contrary to its name, the drug makes you feel nothing. No happiness, but no sadness, no anger, nothing at all. When there is nothing else–no escape from whatever you’re feeling there’s always Joy, and for someone who is feeling everything nothing can be only ecstasy. Unfortunately, the price of feeling nothing is terrible. When you suppress those horrible feelings, all the obsessions, angers, and fears you have flee your mind for anywhere else. Your mind crumbles, your soul erodes, and your body twists into horror. All that’s left of you are those denied impulses and desires personified as a monstrosity–a beast that has gotten rid of the pain of being a man.

In the dark caverns under the blasted and ruined land of Olathe this understanding of Joy and its debilitating effects wasn’t lost to the last female alive. No, Buddy Armstrong didn’t care about the effects in the least as she chomped down on the round blue pill that took away her ability to feel. In fact… the last thing she wanted to feel in that moment was anything at all.

Pushing herself up from the stalagmite her body had smashed against and broke, the poncho-clad, red skull-masked girl rose up and swallowed the crushed pieces of the pill–its effects taking over immediately as she looked up at the swollen and twisted monstrosity that shambled through the wide tunnel towards her. Its arms lanky and seemingly unable to haul around the rest of its mass, the Joy Mutant moved with haste, its broad mouth open to reveal misshapen teeth and a wiggling tongue that sought to taste the morsel that had wandered into its sight.

It raised one arm and swung down at Buddy, who waited for the arm to come close before she sprang. With the sound of metal rending flesh and the clang of it smashing through bone, she took off its hand and much of its forearm with a decisively aimed strike.

The Joy Mutant roared in anger and lunged with its head, teeth bared to bite down hard into Buddy as she set her feet against a stalactite and kicked off, the chomp smashing through the rock like it was made of brittle clay. From the destroyed stalactite Buddy kicked off the monster’s opposite shoulder and fell to the ground behind it, landing in a rough tumble and coming to a stop in a bruised heap.

As the monster howled in pain, the sound echoing off the cavern walls and sending other creatures in the dark fleeing in fear… Buddy slowly pushed herself up and leaned onto her sword as a crutch.

“Rando…” She muttered before she pushed herself off.

This would not be happening if he had not abandoned her.

The sound of the mutant’s heavy breathing alerted her to look back and then move to avoid both its remaining hand and the bleeding stump. She rolled forward, and then kept running as the enraged mutant pursued her.

With the help of Joy, she hardly felt the injuries that would’ve normally hobbled her sprint. The Joy also eliminated the anger that she felt–that would’ve otherwise impaired the split-second judgements that she had to make as she kept ahead of the mutant in search of a better arena to fight it in.

And there was so much anger. At the man who abandoned her, at the man who caged her, and at the many men who saw her as something to be possessed and owned. Something to do with as they please, or leave their mark upon.

Even when she couldn’t feel it, Buddy knew those feelings were there. Joy couldn’t make her forget, but it could make it easy. Easy to fight, easy to kill, easy to survive.

In that sense, with the power to fight back granted by Olathe’s final poison… she could truly call herself free–she could be happy.

Buddy, the Joyful.

A clearing of cracked and holed ground lay ahead, lit by sunlight piercing through the gaps of a crumbling ceiling. It was wide open and clear of many obstacles, though. This would be the best place for her to fight.

Avoiding another swipe of the mutant’s severed stump, Buddy landed a safe distance back and raised the sword in her hands, pointing it at the mutant before she propelled herself forward. Dashing straight for its bloated middle, she suddenly swerved left to avoid its remaining hand and jumped to and off its arm to plunge her sword into its throat.

Her slice was dead on, sending a spray of blood splashing across her face of her mask and the front of her poncho and causing the mutant to bellow again. She then adjusted the sword in her grip and jumped down, cutting it down its front and slicing it open.

The mutant bellowed again, its bloodshot eyes rolling around in its head as it drew back its remaining hand and then swung upward, scooping Buddy off her feet and throwing her with all its might towards the ceiling. The impact was little more than that to her. She would need to heal it later, but for now she was in the perfect position to end this.

As she began to fall from the ceiling, she took advantage of her position and kicked off the ceiling and fell towards the mutant. With the sword tightly in her hands, she took careful aim and plunged it straight down into the mutant’s right eye. Standing with her feet on its shoulders as the blood fountained into her face again, she held it in and began to twist the blade to deliver the killing blow and free her blade.

There was another rumble, but this time it wasn’t from the mutant. Suddenly, the mutant dropped from beneath Buddy, and she was weightless–plummeting into an open chasm as the ground collapsed completely.

Buddy watched the cave turn into a chasm, but felt nothing as she plummeted into the widening pit. As the cavern grew lighter from the light spilling in above, she could see the wounded mutant fall towards the wall of the chasm and crash against it, impaled on numerous stalagmites and killed immediately.

Her fall, however, was taking her further and further down. She couldn’t see the ground below, but as she plunged into the black… she felt her body impact something and everything went white. Then she was slowed down–as if she were falling through a thick liquid–before she suddenly passed through and found her momentum increasing straight towards a bed of the brightest, most beautiful golden flowers she’d ever seen.

LISA: The Fallen​

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The beast is not dead. Send help.

 

Undertale and Lisa just play so well with each other~ Being so thematically different yet similar~ Ultimately, they're both about choice and the difficulties that come with it.

I can't wait to see where this goes.

 

Here's another bit.


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Disclaimer: Lisa is property of Austin “D.L.” Jorgensen. Undertale is property of Toby Fox.


“Hey. Wake up.”

The familiar voice pulled at Buddy. A man’s, rough, weary, and yet holding a warmth that should not have been there. It stirred Buddy from oblivion and she turned her ear towards it.

“Today’s the big day. You get to go outside today.”

Excitement rushed through Buddy. For so long, all of her life in fact, she had known nothing but the walls of her home, grabbing glimpses of the sky through cracks in the blacked out windows. She had waited for this moment, wanting it more than anything… a chance to step out into the world and see it for herself.

“I know the perfect little spot, you’re going to love it.”

And she did. On opening both her eyes, she found herself under a blue and endless sky dotted with only the smallest of clouds, hanging over a massive field of beautiful golden flowers. Her eyes wide with awe, she scanned her surroundings.

The field flowers seemed to stretch on forever in every direction, an unbroken sea of gold and greens stretching out to and meeting the sky overhead seamlessly at the horizon. A gentle breeze, comfortably cooling in the warm weather, filled her nose with the fragrance of the flowers, such a beautiful and unknowable thing to her.

“What do you think, Buddy? It’s something else, isn’t it?” His voice… it was so different from what she always knew. There was a happiness there, something so out of character for a man so stoic.

“It’s… it’s beautiful,” she answered, tears beginning to form in her eyes. “It’s so beautiful, Br…!”

She turned and stopped when she heard the splash her shuffling made. Suddenly she could only see half the world, and the ground beneath her feet was extremely wet–as though flooded. She looked down, and saw just beneath the bright golden flowers a standing layer of blood just over two inches deep.

In it, between the flowers, she could see her reflection. Her worn and scarred face–her mutilated left eye covered by bandages. Her hair was tied in a sloppy bunch on the same side, an emergency effort to keep the hair from her wounds as they were treated. She was wearing her old brown poncho, much larger than her small frame, but there was so much blood splattered upon it that it seemed almost completely red now.

“… Buddy…?”

His voice again. This time it was pathetically weak, yet filled with emotions so strong they shook her to the core. She turned to face him, and there he was, a middle-aged man with no hair atop his head but a massive beard that gave his face all of its character. He was shirtless, armless, and covered head to toe in grievous wounds from claw marks to his forehead to arrows and broken spear shafts that stuck from his stocky, yet well-muscled body.

Like her, he was splattered head to toe in blood.

“… Buddy…” He repeated, when he saw through his tear-filled eyes that she was looking at him.

Every emotion began to flood through her, as she watched the large man sink to his knees in front of her, his tears falling to the bright golden flowers, and then the blood beneath them.

“Buddy…” He said again as he wept.

On reflex, she stepped back from him, her hand reaching for her back where she stored her sword. She stopped herself from attacking, even as tears of her own began to form in her remaining good eye.

“… I loved you,” he barely sobbed, before he fell forward into the flowers with a splash that awoke Buddy from her sleep.

Her good eye opened, Buddy brought a hand up to her face, first touching the undamaged right side, before tracing it to her bandaged left. With this self-examination, she realized could suddenly feel everything again. All of her pain, anger, and sorrow… and it beat upon her like stormy seas on a shore.

Joy is addictive, extremely so. When the comfortable numbness ended, everything came flooding back and with it came the overwhelming need to escape it. Joy withdrawal, in adults, sapped away their strength and left them physically and emotionally vulnerable. Buddy herself barely felt withdrawal, but since that day she’d been growing more and more tired when she ought not to have.

Examining her face further, it wasn’t long before Buddy realized that her mask was missing. Had she lost it in the fall? As she sat up she scanned the area around to look for it, she found only the deep bed of golden flowers she’d fallen into. The smell of the flowers filled her nose, the fragrance unlike any she’d smelled. This was the indescribable aroma she enjoyed in her dream.

She looked up, and flinched at the sight of the ceiling. It was a wall of solid white above her head, supplying the light these flowers needed to grow so far underground. Averting her eyes from it, she pushed herself to her feet and stumbled a bit, before she turned and noticed that just ahead of her was a doorway. Upon further inspection around her, she could see a few more examples of old, if man-made structures… crumbled ruins of days long past.

Above the doorway was a symbol. A winged circle with three triangles below it. As such iconography mattered not to Buddy, she hobbled towards the door as she slipped her hand into her poncho and pulled out a small bag of jerky that she tore into.

The taste of the salted horse meat was so delicious that she was feeling better already. If there was one thing that Buddy adored in this world, it was the taste of jerky. While it certainly no Joy, it never hurt to feel good for even as long as it took to eat some.

With less of a limp, she passed through the doorway and entered a completely dark room–save for a single pool of light where another flower grew. Distracted as she was by the darkness up ahead, Buddy barely paid it any mind as she headed for the door beyond. She needed to find her way out of this place, and try to get back to the surface.

That quickly changed when she heard the tiniest voice as she walked past.

“Hey there stranger, you’re not going to just walk on by without saying hello, are you?”

She turned and looked back towards the source of the voice. There was no one back there.

“Hey, down here!” The voice called again, and when she looked down she recoiled with a fright.

The flower was facing her, the white expanse of anthers and filaments at its center bearing a smiling face–like a cartoon flower from the children’s books of her early youth. Even for a girl who’d seen and experienced so much grotesque horror, the sight of an anthropomorphized talking flower still sent her reeling.

As she recoiled back, her hand reached right for where her sword would be, and found only emptiness waiting for her. In that same instant, a dreaded realization hit her–the sword was still firmly lodged in the eye socket of that mutant high above where she fell.

“Hey there, no need to be afraid of harmless lil’ me!” The flower said, after reading her reaction. “You don’t have a thing to be worried about, as you are in the company of the most helpful of folks here in these ruins! Allow me to introduce myself, I’m Flowey! Flowey the Flower!”

Buddy, frozen, stared uncomprehending at the talking flower, her mouth wanting to move but no words coming out. She’d seen plenty of monsters before… but… something like a talking flower?

“You’re new to the Underground, aren’tcha?” Flowey observed before coming to a conclusion. “Golly! You must be so confused!”

At that, Buddy finally found her voice. “… You’re a talking flower.”

“And you’re a one-eyed human, so we have something in common–seeing something entirely new!” Flowey replied.

Buddy cocked her head slightly, taking a bit of offense at the one-eyed human bit. This thing seemed like it was trying to be friendly, but it was still a damn talking flower. “How do I get out of here and back to the surface?”

Flowey stared at Buddy, as if not understanding her question, before he perked right up. “Just passing through, huh? Well, if you’re down here you’ve fallen quite a ways, and there’s only one way I really know out of here.”

Flowey then looked to the door behind him. “And it’s quite a ways away from here. I mean, the Underground is pretty big after all! Dangerous, too.”

Buddy paused and narrowed her good eye. “Dangerous?”

“Sure is, in fact if you’re not careful you could find yourself in a whole heap of trouble!” Flowey warned her, before brightening. “But hey, that’s why I’m here to teach newbies like you how things work around here!”

Flowey’s gaze then drifted down. “Please take note of your chest there! See that red heart?”

Buddy looked down, surprised at the mention of a red heart, and then growing more surprised when she indeed saw one there. Where had that come from? More disturbingly, it looked cracked and split, and when she moved she swore she could see small flecks of red come off it.

“That is your soul, the very culmination of your being! Everything you are is represented by that!” Flowey said, drawing Buddy’s now rapt attention back to him.

“Why can I see it?” Buddy demanded.

“Because you’re a human in the underground, silly! You gotta protect it because monsters are gonna want it! A human’s soul is pretty valuable down here since you guys hardly ever drop by, pardon my pun.”

Flowey grew a tad serious. “And there ain’t nothing more that any monster would like, than to have a human soul.”

Buddy didn’t like that at all. “So I have to protect my soul, how?”

“Well, you need to make it strong with LV.”

“What’s LV?” Buddy demanded.

“Why it’s short for LOVE!”

Buddy’s face fell ever slightly, a wave of nausea falling over her. “Love…?”

“Yes, LOVE. Everyone needs some in their hearts if they want to get by in life,” Flowey replied with a quick laugh, before he leaned close as if to examine her, “And I can tell that even for a little lady like you, you have a whole lot of LOVE you want to share with the world.”

Buddy tightened her lips. Love to share, huh? She was surprised she had any she could share, what with all of the horrible men eager to share theirs with her.

“The more LOVE you get, the stronger your soul will be,” Flowey went on, “And while you’ve got plenty of LOVE in your soul there’s no harm in getting a little bit more. In fact, you’re gonna need it down here!”

Buddy huffed. “So how do I get love? Sing campfire songs? Talk about my feelings?”

“You don’t need to do any of that! I’ll be happy to share some with ya!” Flowey said with a wink.

Buddy grew even more defensive, a panic flashing through her but being held underneath her stony façade. “And how would you do that?”

“Nothing invasive or uncomfortable at all!” Flowey said. “For you see, LOVE is shared through little white… friendliness pellets!”

With a quick rustle of his petals, Flowey let loose five of the pellets into the air, the ovoid-shaped pellets rotating in the air above his head. Buddy stared at them, and then down at the flower, before locking her gaze onto the pellets.

“Just run around and grab as many as they can when I send them to you, okay?” Flowey asked. “Then you’ll get plenty of LOVE!”

Buddy did not know about this. The friendly talking flower and everything that it was telling her. She couldn’t tell if it was really trying to help her or if this was some kind of trick. Then again, she was also wondering if this was even real. She’d never seen a talking flower, let alone one that could be considered ‘friendly’.

Growing up, she had been taught that the world was a dangerous place, that out beyond her four walls there would be nothing but people who would hurt her, or worse. To that end, she’d been taught to kill in order to survive, to show no mercy to anyone who would dare harm her. In that regard, she had been taught right… from the moment she had left home she’d seen nothing but the worst of people.

No… even back home, she knew the worst of people, but what she learned in that broken home had been indispensible up to this moment. No one could be trusted, everyone wanted to cage her or use her. She was not a person with feelings or desires.

Yet here, she was being spoken to so differently. This strange creature, less human than even the Joy Mutants, was speaking to her like no one had ever before. Or at least not in the longest time. The confusion was starting to freak her out.

“Here they come! Try your best to catch them!” Flowey called to her, and the pellets began a lazy, almost whimsical flight towards her, like snow drifting horizontally through the air rather than falling.

Buddy tensed up again, watching their approach, as her instincts told her to run, but her curiosity yearned for her to stay put. Maybe they were friendliness pellets that can help her, maybe this strange flower didn’t want to hurt her.

When the pellets were at their closest, completely unavoidable, they accelerated. Each of the five pellets struck home. Two passing through the right side of her chest, the other through her right shoulder, and the remaining two through her stomach and left thigh. They passed through with the speed and violence of bullets–sending a blinding pain through Buddy and causing blood to erupt from her mouth.

Nearly blinded by pain, she stared in horror at Flowey, whose face was now a toothy grin with white, pupiless eyes filled with a malicious delight.

“You idiot,” Flowey spoke, his high-pitched voice replaced with something distorted and dark. “Someone with as much LOVE as you have, and you still hesitated to do anything.”

Buddy fell to her knees, blood dripping from her new wounds and seeping from old ones. Somehow, with just one hit, she was already…

Flowey began to cackle. “Let this be a lesson to you–in this world… it’s KILL or BE KILLED!”

Flowey’s fading cackling was the last thing Buddy heard as a white light filled her vision and then turned to the indescribable oblivion that followed death.

As she felt everything begin to slip, however, she could feel something deep inside her, a burning feeling she couldn’t describe–a burning feeling that won’t let her die.

“I can’t die here…” She thought as she began to fade away entirely.

To her surprise, someone agreed.

You cannot give up yet…

The words, she didn’t hear them so much as feel them. Her soul was like a canvas, and someone was painting those words across it. Who was that? How could she hear them?

Stay Determined…

With that, those questions no longer mattered. Whoever it was, whatever it was, it only made the burning within her hotter. As it spread to every corner of her consciousness, her being, she could only want to live more and more.

Not here. Not now. Buddy Armstrong refused.

… And that refusal to die filled her with DETERMINATION.

Suddenly she was standing in front of Flowey, his “Friendliness Pellets” hovering above him as he prepared to send them her way again. Disoriented for only a moment, she stared at Flowey, fury overcoming her, as the smiling flower carried on his spiel.

“Here they come! Try your best to catch them!” Flowey called to her, and the pellets began a lazy, almost whimsical flight towards her, like snow drifting horizontally through the air rather than falling.

This time, Buddy didn’t hesitate. She stepped aside and let the pellets pass by her and into the dark.

Flowey stopped, and stared at her. “Wait a minute…”

Flowey looked around, as if something had just caught up with him… he was confused, not so much by Buddy evading his pellets, but by something else. “How did you…?”

Buddy clenched her hands into fists. She had no blade on her, but her hands would be more than enough to pummel this weed into a paste. “I’m no idiot. I’m not going to let a fucking weed kill me.”

Were Flowey’s face already not a pure white, it would have gone pale. The petals that framed it, however, did lose a bit of their color as his face morphed into a grotesque, almost demonic appearance.

“What did you do?” Flowey demanded in that distorted voice.

Defiantly, she adopted a fighting stance. “What’s more important is what I’m going to do.”

Flowey’s shock quickly turned to a delighted fury. “You idiot. Do you think that I’m going to let you live a second longer?”

A whole ring of Flowey’s pellets then materialized, surrounding Buddy from all sides. Looking around desperately, she watched as more and more of the pellets appeared, building a dome around her.

As the dome of pellets was quickly assembled, she looked to Flowey, whose face mutated further to reflect his malice and hate towards her. A depraved, soulless smile that was reminiscent of too many monsters she’d already killed to this point.

“Die.”

Then with frightening speed they began to close in on her, to eviscerate her from every direction as Flowey laughed wildly. With nowhere to run, and no chance to survive a full hit, Buddy raised her arms to block and hoped for the best.

The best came, but not from her, however. A tornado of fire spun up around her, absorbing and incinerating the pellets before they could touch her. The intense flames touched her as well, but to her continued surprise they did not so much as singe even the exposed skin they swept across.

And just like that the flames were gone, and Buddy was unharmed. As she stood before an equally surprised Flowey, another flame lit up the darkness, this time a much less dramatic fireball from Buddy’s right that shot towards and struck Flowey with enough force to blast him from his roots and send him hurtling into a gap in the floor to Buddy’s left.

Buddy turned towards the source of the fireball, and took a step back when a figure emerged from the darkness. It was a tall, white furred creature wearing a white sleeved purple dress with a blue shield bearing that same winged rune she saw. The creature’s face was almost goat-like, complete with long floppy ears and small horns, but its face seemed feminine… and there was an expression of joyed relief as it laid eyes upon her.

“Thank goodness,” it said in a voice that took Buddy entirely by surprise. It was different from any other voice she ever heard.

It walked over, casting a dark look towards the hole that Flowey fell into, before looking back at Buddy who immediately drew back. “Ah, do not be afraid my child. I have no intention of harming you.”

That voice, it was so alien to Buddy.

“I am Toriel, caretaker of the Ruins,” it went on, “I pass through here every day to see if anyone has fallen down.”

Buddy regained her composure, but just barely. She couldn’t get over its voice. “How am I supposed to believe that?”

Toriel looked towards the hole Flowey fell into with another bitter glower. “Only a truly awful creature would torture a child. I have cared for every human that has fallen into the ruins and made sure they are safe.”

Buddy was skeptical, especially after Flowey’s stunt. But if she remained determined, she could escape whatever trick this monster might have, right? “Do humans fall down here often?”

“You are the first human to come here in a long time,” Toriel replied. “In fact, they were a small child, like yourself.”

Buddy then asked. “… Are you a woman?”

It was Toriel’s turn to recoil a bit, finding the question odd. “Am I female? Well yes.”

Another female. The very first Buddy had ever met.

Toriel then turned towards the door that Buddy had originally headed towards the ruins. “Come, I will guide you through the catacombs.”

Buddy stared at the fuzzy monster woman’s back, before she followed her and exited the cramped room where she had met Flowey. Outside the door were two sets of staircases straddling a pile of red leaves that Toriel ascended, and when she looked up she looming shadows of the Ruins towering under the distant glow of the strange barrier she fell through.

In spite of their haunting appearance, Buddy felt no fear of the Ruins or of the strange woman who was now her guide. She didn’t feel any of the usual horrors that haunted her. As she began to follow Toriel up the stairs, Buddy was filled with determination.

LISA: The Saved​

 

And Buddy learns how to violate time and space, I wonder if it'll last once outside?