Yellow Justice

Once it was just the three of them, Flowey poked his head out of the ground next to Frisk's body. Martlet was almost in tears, as close to crying as the tiny flower had ever seen her get.

"Flowey," the bird monster choked out, "I- I don't know what to do. Are they gonna... They- they're not, right? They can't. We need them. All of monsterkind, we need Frisk. They're our only hope."

Flowey turned away. He wasn't crying, didn't even feel like crying. Heck, he didn't even care. Of course he didn't. He wasn't sad at all. He didn't care about Frisk or other monsters. The only reason he was racking his brain so hard for a way to save Frisk was... well, it was just a damn shame, was all. They'd been through so much together, with all the resets, and when the SOULs revolted, and-

Flowey's head snapped up as he remembered something, and he disappeared into the ground, leaving Martlet holding Frisk's immobile body. Seeing him leave so suddenly finally made Martlet break down, and she buried her face in Frisk's shirt.

After a few minutes, she heard the soft "pop" and rustle of leaves that indicated Flowey had returned. She looked up to see Flowey surrounded by six heart-shaped objects, each in a different color, all floating around his head. Martlet looked confused as she blinked the tears out of her eyes. "What... are those..." Her breath caught in her throat as her eyes lit on the yellow heart. "Oh... my gosh..."

She shook her head and looked at Flowey. There was an edge to her voice when she spoke. "Why... why do you have them?"

Flowey bristled, his petals standing on end. "Hey, don't look at me like that! It's not MY fault they're still here. They just... wouldn't leave. I think they still have some power left in them or something. I know they want to move on, I can feel it. But they can't, for some reason."

He looked away and scratched the side of his face with a leaf. "So, I, uh... figured, maybe their power can do some good here. I know human SOULs can heal each other directly, I've seen it."

Martlet cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. "You've... seen it?"

Flowey drew back. "Never mind that! Just trust me on this. It's not like we have anything to lose, do we?"

Martlet blinked and looked down at Frisk's body. Her wing was laying over their heart. She could barely feel it beating, and they didn't even appear to be breathing. "We don't have much of a choice. Um... are the... are they doing this willingly?"

Flowey made a wry face. "Yeah, uh... I know from experience that I can't make them do anything they don't want to do. They're still conscious, you know. I can still feel their feelings. So, um. Yeah, if they want to do this, they will. And I think they do. All I had to do was say that Frisk needed help, and they... answered the call for help, I guess."

As if in response, the six hearts floated up in the air, hovering over Frisk and Martlet. Martlet gasped in awe as she watched them. After a few minutes, she whispered, "But why aren't they doing anything?"

Flowey tilted his stem and rested the tip of a leaf on the bend, looking like a sassy kid putting their hand on their hip. "Well, I don't think they can do much with you in their road, featherhead."

"Huh? Oh!" Martlet reluctantly lowered Frisk to the ground and stepped back.

The SOULs immediately moved towards Frisk, and as their aura surrounded the fallen human, they began to lift the body into the air. Flowey and Martlet watched in open-mouthed amazement as the six hearts circled around and around Frisk's body, faster and faster, creating a rainbow swirl that completely obscured Frisk from sight.

When they finally stopped, Frisk was clearly breathing again, their eyes fluttering open as they looked at Flowey and Martlet. Martlet laughed, clapping her wings together, and Flowey was smiling, just a little, in spite of himself.

The SOULs slowly lowered Frisk to sit on the ground. Martlet didn't seem to realize Frisk still needed to recover their strength and wrapped her wings around them in a bear- er, bird?- hug. "Oh, my gosh, Frisk, I was SO SO SO afraid we'd really lost you!"

Frisk smiled and weakly put their arms around Martlet. Then they looked over at Flowey- but the flower wasn't watching Frisk. Frisk turned to look at the SOULs, and saw that they had changed. Instead of six floating hearts, now the ghostly figures of six small children floated just a few inches above the ground.

"It's true," Martlet breathed when she saw them. "They really were all just kids."

The first of the SOULs to speak was the aqua one, a tiny girl in a kimono about two sizes too big for her, with a bright red ribbon tied in her hair. She couldn't have been more than 4 years old. "Uuu," she cooed, "is it over already? We were just having fun! The whole world was spinning, spinning!"

The purple SOUL, a child of about ten, laid a hand on her shoulder. "It's over, Nintai. It's time for us to go."

"Oh." Nintai pouted a little bit, then shrugged and danced in place. "Well, I don't really get it, but it was fun playing with you!"

The purple SOUL smiled at her naivety, looking like they were about to say something, but then shook their head to themself. "You know," they said, "I climbed the mountain because I wanted to explore the mystery. I wanted to know everything there is to know about the world, and a mountain full of monsters, well... I had to know, you know? And it turned out... everything I thought I knew, was wrong."

The orange SOUL, an eight-year-old girl with boxing gloves and a bandana around her forehead, said, "I always heard the monsters took everything from us- our friends, our families, our magic. People were afraid of them coming back, so I wanted to fight them, to protect my friends and family. I know now that everything I heard when I was a kid, before I came here, that it was all wrong. I... there was never... any reason to FIGHT."

The orange SOUL wiped away a tear and put an arm around the green SOUL, the oldest of all of them, a heavyset thirteen-year-old with a square face. "Cookie here doesn't talk much, but they always dreamed of being a chef, and they heard about magic monster food and they just wanted to try it, to try new things to eat. They don't like to fight, and they heard that monsters only fought because they had to, so Cookie thought it was safe."

Cookie nodded, smiling sadly.

A choking gasp made them look at the blue SOUL. It was a boy about twelve years of age, wearing a ballerina's tutu. "I'm... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Martlet clapped a wing over her mouth, knowing what the blue SOUL was apologizing for.

"I... was sick for so long," the blue SOUL went on. "I could barely move on my own. Only one person ever came to visit me, and they couldn't come often. I was... so alone. I wanted to move, to feel, to know love in my limbs. I sat in that hospital bed, day in and day out, thinking how unfair it all was, and coming up with my own code of how people should live, and how they should treat others, because no one did that for me. And I... all I wanted to do was to climb that mountain, find a whole new race of people I could share my dream with, my dream of how the world should be. Or... or die trying.

"I'll never know how I got up the mountain on my own. It took me days. I was starving and dizzy, and I didn't jump in. I fell. And I thought, that was the end. But then... that nice goat lady found me. And she healed me. She healed everything that was wrong with me. And for the first time in my life, I could move. I could run, I could jump... I could dance. And I didn't care that I was a boy, I wanted to be a ballerina. I wanted to do EVERYTHING, no matter what people said about it. I wanted to live by my own rules, of how people should be.

"But... I couldn't go back. I couldn't get back to the surface. I was trapped down here. So I... I wanted to do everything I could do. And I wanted to live by my own moral code. But it... it didn't work. Some monsters just wanted to fight. And I tried, again and again and again, until I just got tired. And I decided... if I couldn't live how I wanted on the surface, doing everything I wanted up there, then I would do everything, experience EVERYTHING, down here."

Out of the corner of their eye, Frisk saw Flowey shrivel a bit, and Frisk suddenly understood what the blue SOUL meant.

The blue SOUL buried his face in his hands. "Why did I do that? I KNEW what I was doing was wrong. I hurt so many... that vampire, the little girl with him. And in the Ruins- so. much. DUST!" He broke down and fell to the ground, sobbing. "I never did anything but hurt everyone! All I wanted was love, but all I gained was a new level of violence!"

And the yellow SOUL, another ten-year-old, dressed up in cowboy garb, complete with a fancy, broad-rimmed hat that looked brand spanking new, knelt beside the blue SOUL. "Listen to me. You think yer the first human that ever made mistakes? You think yer the first human that ever got broken? Look at me." The blue SOUL looked up at the yellow SOUL. "You remember me, don'tcha, Indi? I was the one who visited ya in the hospital, when I could git away from the foster home. You goin' missing was the whole reason I started thinkin' about jumpin' in the mountain myself." The yellow SOUL laughed. "I wanted to do justice, like the heroes in my favorite movies. I jumped in here plannin' to take every monster down, get real strong and take all five of the humans home with me."

The yellow SOUL shuddered. "I'm real glad I didn't. They all... they were all real nice. I... I loved them. I was gonna... gonna kill them all, but I ended up lovin' 'em, instead. And... an' I don't think it matters what you did back then. I mean, yeah, maybe ya did do all those bad things. But..." They glanced at Flowey. The golden-petaled flower stiffened and looked away. "Everyone has the capacity to do bad things. Just doin' bad things, that don't make ya bad. I think... well, I think everyone can be redeemed. I think everyone deserves mercy."

Frisk glanced sideways at Flowey, saw him shaking, not looking at anyone.

The yellow SOUL held out a hand to Indi and helped him to his feet. Then all the humans turned to look at Frisk.

"Thank you," Indi said, spreading out the tutu as he curtseyed. "Thank you all for finally freeing us. Thank you... for letting us rest. And thank you for letting us share what is left of our SOULs with you. Even if it ends, love... will always continue."

"Let's play together again soon!" Nintai said, spinning around as she danced.

The purple SOUL adjusted their glasses. "In the end, I... Well, I never became the great genius I wanted to be, but I still think I got to learn a whole lot!"

"I... I just wanted to be brave and protect everyone," the orange SOUL said. "You'll- you'll say I was brave, right?"

Frisk nodded, a lump in their throat. They looked over at Cookie, who just smiled and waved.

The yellow SOUL scratched the back of their neck. "Sounds silly now, but... I jus' wanted to be a cowboy. Well..." they looked up at Martlet. "What do you think? Was I a good one?"

Martlet smiled proudly. "You were the BEST, Clover."

The figures of the six children began to flicker and fade. "Quickly," the purple SOUL said, "before we disappear completely." They surrounded Frisk in a massive group hug, the ghostly figures glowing softly. To Martlet and Flowey, it looked as though their energy was flowing into Frisk. And as their figures softly faded away, their voices mingled together into one final phrase: