Surprisingly, it only took Frisk 1 minute to recover from the hysteria of being crushed to death. It was one minute of repressing the experience as fast and as far down in his psyche as possible, but it still worked. Now he was only slightly hyperventilating at the thought of going back into the next room to face Flowey again.

Frisk honestly wasn't sure why Flowey had let him live. One second he seemed almost ready to pull the trigger, and then the next he just seemed amused. And that thought triggered another round of hyperventilating, only to be stopped by the warm sensation of his Aura coating his body. Truly, he didn't have the time to waste here. He was sure the two-minute mark was almost up.

So, with a deep breath and another second to make sure his hold on his Aura was tight, Frisk made his way to the exit. However, before he could leave completely, he saw a stick sitting on the right side of the door. Deciding that it was better than nothing, he picked it up and continued on his way.

"Oh, so you're not going to give up? Good, it would be disappointing if I had to go in there and kill you." Flowey's voice echoed across the smaller room.

Frisk flinched at the memory that his voice pulled up, but fought through it and brandished his stick. "What's going on here, Flowey? What are you planning?"

"Oh," Flowey smirked, "are you angry that I let you live?"

"No!" Frisk scoffed. "I just don't trust you not to have an ulterior motive."

"HAHAHAHA!" Flowey's laugh grew as his mouth formed into that damned smile. "Your Right! What I really want is to feel the satisfaction of seeing that damned PERSEVERANCE die in your eye. I want to crush your spirit just like I crushed your body!"

"Bastard," Frisk muttered as he processed what Flowey was saying. Having someone who could effectively control time and wanted to watch you break was not ideal. "I won't let you!" Frisk cried out as he charged forward, taking the initiative. He swung in a wide arch with his newly found stick.

Shadows lengthened and the room became bathed in contrasts. Predictably, Flowey burrowed away, leaving Frisk's stick to swing through nothing but air.

"Tch, are you just going to run this entire time?" Frisk said, as he tried to play off Flowey's ego, "or are you just too scared to fight me normally?" At the first sign that Flowey had breached the ground, Frisk took off trying to get a hit in while Flowey was responding. With another wild swing, he aimed to take the flower off of Flowey's stem.

*SNAP*

Instead of hitting Flowey or just hitting air as Frisk expected, the stick snapped in half after coming into contact with a thick vine Flowey had grown from the ground. Frisk, taken off guard, lost control of his Aura again and was knocked clear across the room by a second vine. This time, however, a second snap echoed throughout the room as Frisk landed awkwardly on his right arm.

"AH!" Frisk let off a short cry of pain before struggling to get his Aura back under control.

"Wow! You think I'd be scared to fight someone like you? You're doing even worse than before." Flowey watched gleefully as Frisk tried to stand back up. "Are you sure you don't just want to give up?" If you do, I'll make your death quick." he finished in a mocking tone.

Frisk's good arm clenched into a fist and he shoved himself off the ground as he was able to finally bring his Aura back. It instantly started to try and repair his arm, but Frisk knew that it wouldn't be usable anymore in this fight.

"Shove it," Frisk growled through clenched teeth, as his mind whirled, trying to find any way of getting out of his predicament.

"Ahh," Flowey came to a conclusion, "I think you're still wallowing under the assumption that you could actually beat me, ME! I have beaten nearly every monster in the underground! I've lived in this kill or be killed world for DECADES! And you still think you can beat me in minutes?"

"I won't know unless I try," Frisk said as he got back into his fighting stance. There wasn't any way to think himself out of this situation. All he could do was continue forward.

"HAHAHAHA!" For some reason, that response amused Flowey. "Good, good. Then this won't be even more boring. As a reward, how about I show you a fraction of my true power? "

Frisk tensed as three vines the thickness of his torso shot out of the ground. They were green, the same color as Flowey's stem, but they had massive thorns on them. Frisk started to run away from the vines but was met with a seeming wall of baseball-sized bullets homing in on him.

With a desperate move, Frisk jumped towards the part of the wall that seemed to have the least number of bullets. Taking one hit to the torso and one to the shoulder of his bad arm caused him to fall to the ground, even feeling the pain through his Aura. This caused the rest of the bullets to hail down near him, their homing effect not quite powerful enough to make a full turn.

However, this also created a problem for Frisk. The dust that was kicked up by the bullets obscured the massive vine that rammed into the just recovering Frisk, sending him flying through the air for the third time. But this time, Frisk still had his Aura up and even though it had taken some punishment, it wasn't depleted yet.

Recovering faster from his flight and now back to his feet, Frisk tried to dash to the left, only to find more massive vines reining him in. Frisk glanced right and saw that the same was true for his right. Only then did his eyes fall on Flowey, standing on the other side of his makeshift tunnel. With what seemed like an unlimited number of those golf ball-sized pellets filling the air around him.

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"Do try and be better next time," Flowey laughed, "well anyway. Die!"

A flood of spinning pellets came storming forward, and Frisk was forced to stand there, unable to dodge, desperately throwing his all into his Aura. But the already depleted power couldn't hold up to the onslaught and it shattered into shards of yellow and purple light, leaving Frisk to bear the attack himself.

This felt very different from the crushing death from earlier. These pellets had no noticeable effect on Frisk's physical body, their only damage was to his SOUL. It felt like he was being ripped apart on a fundamental level, and the only thing Frisk saw before it went dark was his SOUL shattering into pieces similar to his Aura.

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[Save Loaded x3]

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This time, Frisk went into the fight a little bit more prepared. He spent only 30 seconds upon the reset to get over the experience of his SOUL being destroyed. He spent the rest of the time trying to learn how to infuse his stick with Aura to make it more durable. This also doubled as training on keeping Aura up while trying to do something else.

During the fight, Frisk did better than before. His Aura only slipped once, allowing for a bullet to get through and almost kill him, but the rest of the fight went better. He was able to evade the vines for much longer, and the bullets were getting easier to dodge. His stick still broke, but it deflected a hit from a vine before it died.

Sadly, he still died, this time from a vine that pierced his heart after his Aura was exhausted. He was pretty sure Flowey was going easy on him for some reason, but still, he was improving.

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[Save Loaded x6]

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Turns out, dying five times doesn't make the process any easier, but dying five times and having to go right back into a fight for your life makes you really good at repressing. Frisk was getting better. Before every fight, he would meditate quickly with his stick, trying to get into better sync with his Aura.

This actually helped during the battle; this time he kept his Aura up throughout the entire fight. He even managed to bounce a bullet back by deflecting it with his stick, and the stick didn't even break. He got better at maneuvering around and using his Aura-boosted stats to jump and dodge attacks.

In the end, Frisk still died. He got caught from below by a vine that stopped him just enough to allow a barrage of bullets to hit his weakened barrier. But he could feel himself improving; this time when he died, his right eye was glowing purple.

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[Save Loaded x12]

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(During the fight)

Frisk's right eye burned an ethereal purple as he maneuvered his Aura-enhanced stick to knock down barrage after barrage of flying baseball-sized bullets. A tingling sensation alerted him to an attack from behind, so he put as much power into his tired legs as he had left to leap over the whip-like vine that cracked past his previous location.

"Has the knowledge sunk in yet?" Frisk eyed Flowey wearily as he stopped his attacks to talk. "That there is nothing you can do. No hope, no escape."

Frisk took a couple of deep breaths to regain stamina before responding. "I'm still here, Flowey. Face it, you might crush my body, but my SOUL is PERSEVERANCE. You can't break me."

"Arrogant! I like it!" Flowey called out "But the outcome of this fight has already been predetermined. With your power like that, you'll never be able to survive in this world."

Frisk's face morphed into a scowl as more and more pellets formed into the air around him.

"If you never fight back, all you will do is DIE!"

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[Save Loaded x20]

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(After death and in the starting room)

Frisk knew he needed to find a way to actually defeat Flowey or he would never be free of this cycle. Melee combat had proven almost completely useless as Flowey was very good at dodging all attacks and had impossibly good ranged options. Either he overwhelmed Frisk with hundreds of smaller pellets, did the same with precision bullet barrages, used his whip-like vines to attack or ensnare, or even did it all at the same time.

Frisk tried to figure out any ranged attacks that he could use himself, but the only thing that came to mind was the blade energy projection that Blake uses. Even then, he had no idea what he was doing or how to use it.

With a resigned sigh, Frisk got up from his meditation and made his way back to the fight.

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[Save Loaded x23]

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Frisk wasn't an idiot. He felt the burning feeling that he presumed to be PERSEVERANCE both in his SOUL and in his right eye. He had tried multiple times to interact with the power, and so far it didn't seem to do much actively.

However, there was no denying that it had boosted his power. Even now, it was reinforcing his Aura making him better and more durable. Hopefully, soon he would be able to take a more active role in this fight.

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[Save Loaded x26]

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It was a victory in Frisk's eyes. Even if he didn't even end up landing a hit during the entire fight, he still won. Toriel had shown up before Flowey could finish him off. This was the first time since the second fight that Frisk had lasted so long against Flowey. And this time, Frisk was sure that Flowey wasn't even holding back that much.

When Frisk fought Flowey again for the 27th time and the shadows lengthened around him, even though Flowey had stepped up his game again. Frisk found that it didn't even matter; his SOUL burned ever brighter.

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[Save Loaded x29]

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(After death and in the starting room)

The 30th fight felt significant somehow. Frisk's eye almost hurts from how hard it is burning. He can feel the energy flowing throughout his body, similar to and reinforcing his Aura. Frisk somehow knew that he was on the verge of a breakthrough, and it would come during this fight.

"I'm ready."