Bête Noire Spell

The **Bête Noire Spell** is a forbidden and dangerous spell that revolves around the use of Runic Magic to construct a Bête Noire, an entity of pure destruction.

## History

A wizard long ago (during time of the Prequel) inverted their trait and cast the spell, making the first ever Bête Noire. The Bête Noire was later killed, and the Bête Noire spell became one of the most strictly forbidden inverted spells known to date.

Later on, a wizard named Agate Lightvale created the next Bête Noire by inverting her soul to Fear and killing her brother, Copper, and her sister, Amber, and using Amber's body for the spell. This Bête Noire stayed dormant for a thousand years, before initiating her plan to kill all monsters and rule over humans, splitting herself in two to appear less suspicious. This Bête Noire was then later killed by Gaster and her body was taken over by HATE she had consumed.

## Capabilities

To create a Bête Noire, one must invert their trait and have a corpse as the vessel. It is unknown how the spell is specifically used to cast it, but it is shown when casing it, the soul of the caster will turn pink with pink magic in their hands, mixing the spell’s magic with the inverted trait. The soul will then convert the chosen vessel into magic and absorb it, turning into the body. The Bête Noire will retain the consciousness of the original caster and retain the abilities of their trait.

**Note: The listed powers and abilities of Bête Noires *may* not be completely accurate, as the power/abilities of them are somewhat unknown. This is mostly speculation from what we can see from the Season 2 Bête Noire.**

* **Superhuman Physiology**: Bête Noires are more powerful beyond regular human-level, and having rather unique and different physical characteristics to their bodies:
	+ **Superhuman Strength**: Bête Noires have increased strength from their magical bodies; the more magic they absorb the stronger they are. "Betty" punched Asgore Dreemurr in the stomach while fighting him as she sent him flying. "Betty" also was strong enough to throw large rocks at Mettaton when he was floating in the air.
	+ **Superhuman Speed**: Bête Noires can run at speeds that make it look like they are teleporting. However, it's likely they can't see when they're running since they go back to their original speed when they are about to reach an opponent giving their a opponent a chance to hit them, or they possibly can only run in short bursts but in a very quick manner.
	+ **Superhuman Durability**: Bête Noire's are more durable than average monster and humans, able to withstand being hurled through a concrete building and land from very high places without any damage and withstand bullets, even able to withstand being slashed by a Determination weapon, shown by "Betty" getting thrown into a large mountain by Frisk, punched by Gaster's duality hands and getting hit by Chara's Determination weapon, and even able to withstand a Gaster Blaster by Sans when he sneak attacked her.

* **Pain Resistance:** Although being struck by Asgore's trident and having some of her face blown off by Mettaton's laser in his NEO form, "Betty" didn't appear to be in pain. She screamed as Gaster killed her mercilessly, though, indicating that she only had a limited tolerance for pain.

* **Adaptability:** Bête Noire's are able to adapt to new magical weapons, environment, and fighting skills quickly, shown with the Season 2 Bête Noire adapting to battles and the new environment to think of new tactics and ideas. This is mainly because Bête Noire’s are made a thousand years in the past with the memories of their creators from that time, in which they seemingly are able to adapt to new environments and data.
* **Nigh-Immortality**: Biologically distinct from humans and monsters, Bête Noires are composed entirely of magic. Unlike typical organisms, they don't disintegrate immediately upon death but instead slowly dissipate into the air. Devoid of blood and bones, they lack organ systems and can endure conditions that would be fatal for ordinary beings. Operating without the need for food, water, sleep, or air, Bête Noires can thrive for years by consuming sufficient magic. Their magical construction renders them unaffected by age, establishing a biological superiority over humans and monsters.

* **Creator Mimicry:** A Bête Noire's physical appearance looks similar to the corpse used for the spell filled with pink magical-matter underneath, but the outer-layer/corpse of the body is able to peel off, showing a more monstrous appearance with pink skin, glowing dark-magenta eyes and sharp teeth. This is shown with the 2nd Bête Noire, as in Game Over Part 2 when Mettaton used a laser on her, the outer layer started to slowly disintegrate from her body, showing her with flowing, long hair, which has a resemblance with Agate Lightvale. It can be argued that all Bête Noire’s look similar to this or it’s their bodies mimicking their creators.

* **Inverted Magic**: Bête Noires are able to use inverted magic in a way due to having an inverted trait that’s mixed with the Bête Noire Spell. Depending on what inverted trait is used for the spell, they are able to use that magic in their own way. For example, the Season 2 Bête Noire can use Fear-based abilities (Hallucination Manipulation, Memory Reading, Pyrokinesis, Fragokinesis, Statistics Amplification, Rhabdophobia) due to being made from said Fear.
* **Soul Fission & Fusion**: When split, the aforementioned outer-shell and pink magic-matter take their own individual forms and becoming sentient beings; the Bête Noire now looking and sounding more identical to the vessel used for the spell (though their bodies now being empty) and a less frightening appearance, and the magic-matter becoming a floating entity.
	+ **Akumu**: The "floating entity" in question that is based off the Bête Noire’s magic-matter. It can shapeshift into anything, along with offensive/defensive weapons and other life forms. It can also collect and preserve souls inside it. Being parts of the same soul, the two share a magical connection, and if one is destroyed the other will slowly die due to missing part of their soul. The two technically have different minds, though still share the same consciousness and goals (via their main creator). Due to becoming separate entities, the shell of the Bête Noire’s powers may get reduced and are limited to what they can do, shown with the Season 2 Bête Noire, as she could not use the abilities in her full-form until her and her Akumu fused. The shell and the magic-matter are able to fuse back together if necessary.
	+ **Kumulings**: Kumulings are constructs and used by Bête Noires as a personal army to collect souls that can transfer the magic to them wirelessly. These creatures can create a sharp pick used as a harpoon to take one's soul. They can also move on both floors and ceilings, and take people's appearance, making them able to use it as a cloak, similar to the Akumus. The Kumulings can combine with other Kumulings in order to become bigger and stronger, where hundreds of Kumulings combined to create Kumuzilla, a gigantic pink blob.
		- **Hive Mind:** Bête Noire's share a magical psychic connection with their Kumulings and Akumu's, allowing the Bête Noire to make their subordinates work together.

* **Soul-Bound Weapon Creation**: Bête Noire's can create various weapons from their souls/bodies for combat.
	+ **Harpoon**: They can create a pink javelin to pierce opponents through the target's chest, which reveals their soul through the other end of the javelin. It is also capable of removing it from the victim without breaking it. The javelin has a pink string attached to retrieve the spear to collect the soul of the target after the javelin stabs them. Bête Noires can use this javelin to fuse with Akumu, thus unleashing their true form. It is possible this is a Bête Noire ability due to the fact Kumulings and even a Bête Noire's Akumu can pierce chests to steal souls.
	+ **Scythe**: Bête Noire’s are able to summon a scythe that is apart of their shapeshifting due to the fact it's not dark magenta nor transparent like their magical projectiles. It's also used to reap souls. While Bête Noire’s can summon this in their fused forms at will, when split, they cannot summon the scythe but can be acquired through their Akumu’s shapeshifting.
	+ **Dark Magenta Weaponry**: Bête Noires are able to create a various of dark magenta weapons. For example, like the Season 2 Bête Noire summoned an aura around her scythe, a bow & arrow, a spear, a shield, blades over her arms, triangular projectiles, and generating shockwaves to push away projectiles.

* **Magical Energy Indication**: Seemingly as shown with the Season 2 Bête Noire, a Bête Noires magic/power is represented with pink magic in their hair which resembles pink highlights. If they're almost out then their pink hair will go to its natural color, but if they have full magic, their hair will entirely be pink and glow brightly. Additionally, a Bête Noire's hair can indicate their emotions, such as fear shown with the 2nd Bête Noire, whose hair is shown to also glow brightly if she is afraid. While this is shown with the 2nd Bête Noire, this may not be completely certain and could possibly vary, and not be strictly aligned with hair.
* **Magic Amplification**: All Bête Noires magic will be enhanced when they absorb magical energy from souls that belong to mages.

* **Shapeshifting**: Bête Noires can manipulate their body and shape their hands into weapons and various of things. For example, with "Betty", they could extend sharp tentacles from their fingertips, have sharp claws, manipulating the size of their limbs, manipulating the length of their limbs and morphing their hands into various blades and shields. However, they lose this ability when they are split, and it applies more to their Akumus. Bête Noire's can even summon weapons through their shapeshifting, like how "Betty" did when breaking into the arena to attack a lady and at an attempt to attack Mettaton when his NEO briefcase was thrown at him.

* **Magic Absorption**: Bête Noires can drain and absorb the magic from souls to enhance and add to their supply of magic when they physically grab the soul after killing a victim.

* **Regeneration**: Bête Noires can regenerate any damage caused to their shell. Depending on how much magic they use on their wounds to heal, the regeneration will either be very effective or very slow.

## Trivia

* A Bête Noire’s *only* weakness is to either run out of magic/souls to consume, or they get hit with an extremely powerful attack (e.g., likely an attack around the same power-level of Gaster’s Polychromatism, Undyne's Spear of Justice or an attack from a skilled Determination user.)
* The physical prowess of the original body is combined with the power of the Bête Noire, so the stronger the body the more powerful the Bête Noire. For example, the Season 2 Bête Noire would have been stronger if Agate used Copper's body rather than Amber's, as Copper was a grown man with years of combat training, while Amber was 14-year-old girl.
* Despite their immense power, Bête Noires are far from invincible, and their strength is entirely dependent of the soul used.
	+ For example, Copper was stronger than Agate, but Agate was able to kill Amber to make him lose his Determination.
	+ Gaster was also much stronger than Bete, and she only won by using Rhabdophobia.
* If a Bête Noire were to be made with an inverted Dual-Traited Soul, it would be [1]terrifying.
* A Bête Noire can be created with any trait, but the soul of the Bête Noire in question will always be pink, because the spell changes it to that color. The pink soul will still have the trait used.
* While it can be assumed a Bête Noire can be made for good purposes, it is very unlikely considering one must invert their trait before casting the spell. Though, it’s possible Bête Noire’s are made to be evil considering their name meaning is "a person or thing that one particularly dislikes".

## References

1. ↑ https://camilaart.tumblr.com/post/618242807739695104/so-im-assuming-the-reason-sans-is-on-a-limited
2. ↑ Cami-blog!, I was just wondering, is pink specifically the... (tumblr.com)