Undersworn
Chapter 2: Six Souls
A faint cloud of dust seemed to follow Frisk as he stalked through the final corridors of Waterfall. He was dragging the murdered corpses of dozens of monsters with him, clinging to his clothes, matting his hair. In some sick, twisted part of his mind, Frisk enjoyed it. He could almost feel strings tugging him along, urging him forward in his shuffling gait, guiding his hand as he struck out at innocent monsters. At first, he dismissed it as Chara's influence, but the thrill he had felt when he fought Undyne, the triumph at seeing her die at his feet, that had come from him.
Frisk seemed to crash into a wave of heat, emanating from the lava pools that gave Hotland its name. He strode past Sans' empty guard station, still bearing snow. The silver, blocky structure of Alphys' lab drew closer. Many of the Underground's denizens saw it as a beacon of hope. A monument to the accomplishments of their civilization, and the birthplace of their greatest idol. To Frisk, it as something different. Long ago, it had been the place where he had met good friends for the first time. Frisk felt a twinge of sadness as he thought back, back to when this had all felt like some silly game to him. Even then, it had never been as pure as he thought it, as pure as the sterile metallic walls would suggest. It was a tombstone, placed to seal away the secret buried underneath.
The smooth doors to the lab slid open at a touch from Frisk, revealing the lab's dim interior to him. Mettaton stood in the center of the blue-tiled floor. The robot began to speak, but Frisk ignored him. The words were familiar and bored him. He examined the lab closer. It seemed even messier than usual. In addition to the yellowed pages that covered Alphys' desk and floor, there were several mechanical parts strewn about haphazardly, most of them torn apart in some way.
Frisk took a step towards Mettaton and brandished the torn notebook he held in his hand. The robot said another few words, then fled, leaving Frisk alone again. He started forward again, leaving the lab and entering the blistering heat of Hotland again. Frisk adjusted his grip on the notebook. He'd never read what was written inside. To be honest, he didn't really care. There was killing to be done.
To the common outsider, the Underground was bleak and uninspiring. Buried beneath Mount Ebott with no sunlight, harsh environments, and little space compared to the surface, a cursory glance may leave a bystander with a poor opinion of the place. A slightly closer look however would reveal majesties that many of the cavern's denizens have grown used to. The soaring ceilings decorated with luminous crystals, awe inspiring Hotland and shining Snowdin, even the magnificent architecture of the capital has been known leave poets at a loss for words.
Even so, the Underground in the aftermath of a particular human child, in a timeline in which they have committed themselves to terrible atrocities, can be bleaker than any surface dweller might have initially imagined it. Filled with suffocating silence, broken only by the low whimpers of monsters afraid to venture beyond their hiding places lest they be slain like others they had known, left to be dust, drifting on the breeze.
The Underground was ruled by fear, everywhere except for three places. The first was a small workroom behind a wooden house, seldom used, but now filled with furious sounds of twisting metal and magic. A last-ditch attempt by a desperate monster to right all these wrongs. Or, at least, bring justice to those that deserved it. The second was a dark room where a robotic superstar prepared itself for its final show. The third place followed a small, insecure scientist as she tried exude confidence and save whoever she could.
Alphys fought down her trembling as she urged the last few monsters into the elevator, where they would be taken to safety. She stepped into the elevator herself, and the doors shut, and the elevator began to move. Snowdin was desolated, as was Waterfall. She had evacuated as many monsters as she could from Hotland, but now the human was here, and she couldn't stay. Mettaton was confronting it, buying a few more precious seconds for them to leave. Every life they could save was a victory, and they had few enough of those against the human. Alphys had always wondered how the monsters had lost so soundly to the human armies during the war, but if this was what all the human soldiers were like, it was a wonder any monsters had survived at all.
Each monster reacted differently to their situation. Some were rendered nearly catatonic with fear, others wailed with grief for lost loved ones. The most bizarre reaction Alphys had seen had been from Sans. The silly skeleton had lost all joviality once the human had killed his brother. He's actually asked for the blueprints she had been looking for when they had talked earlier. He must need something technical to keep his mind off the grief. Alphys thought as the doors to the elevator opened into the city, an emergency function the Hotland elevators possessed, in case of circumstances like this. Alphys had always thought it unnecessary, but now she admired the architect's foresight. She ushered the monsters out of the elevator and sent it back to Hotland, just in case some poor monster was able to get away from the human.
Alphys scurried through the crowded streets toward the castle. The keening and wailing of monsters filled the air, seeming to come from everywhere at once. Alphys tried to block out the sound. She couldn't afford to break down, not now. At the gate to the castle, the royal guards recognized her and rushed her inside. She hurried through grandiose hallways, carved into the mountain itself by master stonemasons. With almost an air of reverence, Alphys entered the throne room, where king Asgore answered petitions on behalf of his people, and where he met the challenges of fallen humans that made it this far. Asgore stood beside his throne, holding his crown in his hands and staring at it. Alphys heard him let out a long, drawn-out sigh.
"Am I a good king, doctor?" He asked solemnly, still not looking at her.
"Of course! You're the best king we've ever had!" Alphys reassured him, a nervous twinge in her voice. Asgore let out a mirthless chuckle.
"For most, of my subjects, I'm the only king they've ever known. No Alphys, I do not believe I am a good king. Had you not warned me when you did, I would have spent the day at the barrier, thinking. There, I would be cut off from all communication. My people would have been slaughtered without me so much as knowing. Even so, with your warning, I have sat here and done nothing for my citizens. So many have died out there while I sit here, a coward, waiting for the human to come to me. No Alphys, if I were a good king I would have sought out the human myself, instead of waiting for it to come to me. Like Undyne." And Mettaton, Alphys thought to herself.
"But if you died, who would lead us? What would we do?" She asked. Asgore began to respond when something caught his eye, and he turned away from Alphys, and seemed to address someone standing behind the throne, hidden from Alphys' view.
"Why, hello. Who are you? And how did you get there?" Out from behind the throne stepped Sans, laboriously dragging an awkward looking bundle behind him. Alphys blinked in surprise and exclaimed,
"Sans! What are you doing here?" The skeleton smiled slightly.
"just a little to help out where i can."
"I am sorry dear skeleton, but I am afraid that you must leave. You too Alphys. We are funneling the human here, to fight me. If I lose, hopefully it will simply pass through the barrier and you will be safe." Asgore said, in his most kingly voice. Sans dropped the bundle he was carrying, and it made a metallic clinking sound as it hit the tile floor, just next to a patch of Asgore's golden flowers.
"sorry pal, but trust me. you need me here." Sans said. He turned to Alphys. "you built mettaton right? you managed to build a robot with a soul?" Alphys nodded. It had been her greatest accomplishment, and the achievement for which she'd been given a position as the royal scientist.
"Yes, of course. Why do you ask?" Alphys replied. Sans bent down and untied the bundle he'd been carrying. Inside was a machine, roughly cylindrical in shape, with a few bits poking out the sides and top. Alphys recognized many of the components. In fact, it was very similar to the soul canisters Asgore had asked Alphys to upgrade earlier, just before the human came. Except, those things on the sides… they were magical energy manipulation nodes, scrapped from the lasers that defended Hotland by the look of them. Except they had been reworked. Specialized. In fact, they were very similar to devices she had given Mettaton, to give him more freedom to manipulate his magic attacks in his human eradication form. Alphys realized what Sans was implying she do.
"No. No! You want me to put a human soul in that thing? It would be able to use outward manifestations of magic! And we would be using the soul of a human we killed! Do you want all of us to die!" Alphys exclaimed.
"i don't want you to put a human soul in it." Sans explained. "i want you to put all of them in it." Alphys stood still, shocked. Asgore glanced back and forth between them, confused.
"Excuse me? Is this… machine… a container for human souls?" The king asked. Sans winked at him.
"yep."
"And it would…" Asgore sought for words for a moment, "allow them to interact with the world? Without being absorbed by a monster?"
"yep."
"And you think this is a good idea?"
"yep."
"Wouldn't it be more effective for me to absorb the souls and fight the human?" Asgore asked.
"Of course it would!" Alphys snapped
"nope." Sans replied.
"Why not?" Asgore asked the skeleton. Sans stared at the king.
"if you absorb the human souls, you would become far more powerful than the 'human.' you would have the power to obliterate them from this timeline. over, and over, and over again, until they gave up." Sans closed his eyes, hands in his pockets. "but you wouldn't. it would come time to strike the killing blow, and you would hesitate. all you would see is a frightened child cowering before you, and for a split second, you would freeze." Sans opened one eye, and it blazed with cobalt flames, casting Asgore in a faint blue light. "i can see it in you. you would hesitate, and they would not. their hate would allow them to strike you down. you would fail us." Sans closed his eyes again. Asgore looked down at his feet in shame, not contradicting the skeleton's words. Alphys shuffled her feet nervously.
"And you—" Asgore met Sans' piercing gaze and gestured at the machine on the floor, "you really think that this is a better way?" Sans chuckled.
"not by much. but it's the best bet we got. alphys, i trust you can put the souls in the device?" Sans asked.
"I-I'm not really sure…" She stammered.
"great. you better jump to it. the human will be getting close." Sans said as he turned and began to walk away.
"What if Mettaton stops them?" Alphys asked.
"mettaton can't stop them." Sans said, and kept walking.
"Wait. Where are you going?" Asgore inquired.
"to buy us some time." Sans answered.
"No offense, but how much can you really do? It appears that you have very little HP." He replied. Sans paused for a moment, then responded,
"hopefully, i can do enough." Then the skeleton disappeared into thin air, startling Asgore.
"What—" He began to say.
"He does that sometimes." Alphys said with a sigh.
Wide stone corridors echoed with Frisk's footsteps, Mettaton's commendable, but ultimately utterly useless resistance left behind. Chara's musical laugh sounded in the back of his mind, and she whispered to him again.
"Things are different this time. Just a little bit. I can tell. Can you?" Frisk kept walking, dragging his feet on the floor, leaving footprints of dust behind him. His hands were slate gray with the stuff. "Sans didn't meet us at his station like usual, and he never asked us to hide behind that stupid lamp. You know, I think we're going to do this again next time, to see if the changes stick." Frisk's pace didn't waver. He stared ahead unblinkingly. "Hey, the fool comedian should be just up ahead right? Fighting him is always a pleasure." Frisk stepped out onto the golden tiles of the judgement hall. He strode forward between massive pillars, holding up the vaulted ceiling above when Sans appeared, seeming to pop into existence out of Frisk's blind spot.
"heya." Sans said.
"you've been busy, huh?"
"Alright, alright. I… I think I can do this." Alphys managed to say, taking a deep breath. The six canisters containing the human souls were arranged out in front of her in a circle around the one Sans built. "He added class III magical feedback suppressors, which should make it easier."
"Suppressors?" Asgore inquired.
"Without a monster's soul to bind them together, the human souls resist being so close together. They would repel each other and force themselves out of the device. It's one of the laws of souls."
"Yes, of course." Asgore murmured, obviously with no idea what Alphys was talking about.
"So, did that skeleton—"
"Sans." Alphys clarified.
"Sans, yes. Did Sans just have this device, laying around somewhere?" Asgore asked incredulously. Alphys shook her head.
"No, I think he just built it. He asked me for the plans to the original soul canisters earlier today."
"He built this in just a day?"
"A little less." Alphys confirmed. "When Sans actually works, he works fast."
"Hmm." Asgore stroked his beard. "How did you meet this Sans?" Alphys cocked her head.
"You know, that's strange…"
"What?"
"I don't remember." A loud crash thundered through the room, coming from the direction the human would be coming from.
"Is that…" Asgore began.
"Sans." Alphys said gravely. "Come on. We need to get to work." Alphys fiddled with a few tiny, barely noticeable mechanisms on each of the canisters before stepping back.
"Ok, ok. Asgore, you've moved the souls before, right?" She asked.
"When putting them into the containers originally, yes." He replied.
"Alright, just move them close to the device. I'll take care of binding them to the machinery." Alphys said. "I'll release them in three. Two. One. Now!" The lids to the canisters released, and six human souls shot into the air. They began to spiral towards the machine in the center of the circle they made, pushed by Asgore's magic. They spun faster and faster until eventually, they were nearly touching the device. Alphys reached out with her magic and tried to use the process she had before, with Mettaton. This was so much harder. Human souls were thousands of times stronger than monster souls, and there were six of them! But Alphys had to try. She gritted her teeth and pushed, binding the souls to the metal, joining them with magic…
A lot of people wonder what happens to you after you die. They wonder what it's like. Clover would tell them, he would tell them it was dark, empty, and unbelievably boring. At least, it was in his case. When most people die, their souls aren't harvested by monster kings and shoved in jars, so Clover might have been a special case.
But, things were different now. Clover could feel it. He wasn't alone anymore. There were others. Five of them. Purple, blue, cyan, green, and orange. And him, yellow. He could feel them, he knew them. Each one exuded a cardinal virtue. Perseverance, integrity, patience, kindness, and bravery. In himself he felt one too. Fitting, based on the events of his journey through the Underground. Justice.
Together with the other souls, they were stronger. With all that power, they could exist as more than just souls.
Alphys sat on the stone floor of the soul vault, panting. She could see the souls in there. She had done it, she had bound them to the device. It wasn't doing anything though. The souls just continued their spinning inside the canister. She had expected it to be far more dramatic.
"I'm sorry." Asgore comforted her. "I guess we will just have to find another way."
The device began to glow.
"Wait, wait I think it's working!" Alphys said, a smile coming across her face. The light began to pulse, growing brighter each time. With one final flash it reached a crescendo, the light searing Alphys and Asgore's eyes, but they couldn't look away. When the light faded, a figure stood before them, composed of the brilliant light they had just seen. It appeared in the image of a human, features obscured by the brilliance of its form. It raised its head toward them. It addressed the king and the scientist with a voice that resonated through the room emphasizing each word, and speaking in a tone, that left no doubt as to the fact that they were smiling when they said it. Smiling a genuine smile.
"You, have no idea how good it feels to exist."
A Communication from the Wordsmith (because Author's Note is too mainstream): There you go. Something interesting happened, are you happy now? Because I am, the rest of this is what I'm really excited to write. Also, you guys just had to do it to me. 2 followers. Right on the mark (passive aggressiveness rising). I'll keep my word. I'll be publishing a treatise on how magic works in Undersworn on the Undersworn tumblr blog. There were directions on how to get there in my message in chapter 1. doesn't like me posting links, so blame them for the few extra seconds being taken out of their day (passive aggressiveness at 60%). Also, no reviews still, huh? That's fine, that's fine (passive aggressiveness 113%). Any questions you have, I will answer. Whether or not it is the answer you're looking for, depends on the question.