Alphys woke to the sound of Undyne yelling.
Now, usually, this was a good thing! Undyne was a natural-born yeller. She could recall fondly the times when Undyne would be screaming as she ran through Hotland, braving the heat to get to Alphys quickly for their TV binge-watching. Or just simply getting challenged for a friendly race, shouting and laughing as she won. Or when cooking one of her elaborate, charred, crunchy dinners. Or giving her piano lessons. Or just saying hello. Yelling was always part of the experience.
But there was a distinct note in this yelling. Unhappy. Annoyed. Angry. It was enough to nearly send Alphys rolling off her makeshift bed in the TV room. She had to paw the floor to find her glasses, her vision a river of swirling DVD boxes that hung over her in their shelves. Fighting away her drowsiness, she strained her ears. Maybe that was just a dream? Maybe there was nothing-
"NGAAAHH! Where is it?!"
Alphys stumbled to the hallway, rushing down the corridors to the main area where some monsters were also blearily getting up. Endogeny was curled up in the midst of the beds, the others so incredibly accepting of it despite its less-than-natural existence. Even so, Alphys could barely get herself to mingle with the others for the rest of the previous day, and just watched in confusion as monster kid would play catch with it, trying his best to toss a stick even though he lacked the arms to do so.
Undyne's yell echoed across the walls, making Endogeny spring up, wagging its tail, its face dripping white sludge in a nightmarish waterfall. The others were just as excited, though with a little less exuberance.
"Doc! Doc!" A mole-like monster with a workhat was bouncing on his feet. Alphys just barely recognized him as a regular puzzle-worker of the Core. "What's happening? What's going on?"
"I-I d-don't know… But it's okay!" she swiftly amended. She caught a quick glance at the time on the wall. Middle of the night. Well, not like it was abnormal for her to be up at odd hours. "I'll go check it out, okay? E-e-everyone, please go back to sleep…"
"Where is it?!" Undyne turned around a corner, her entrance into the main area like the movement of an approaching hurricane. She had a glowing spear at the ready, gripped tightly in a gloved hand. Her hair billowed out behind her, her shining eye-light illuminating the room in all its starkness. "Who took it from me?!"
The others scrambled away as she marched forward. Alphys was the only one who remained where she was. "U-um… who took what?"
Undyne was glaring down at her, teeth sharpened to such incredibly fine points. Alphys blinked, taking another look. Undyne's neck was completely bare.
"Someone took it from me! Someone…" Undyne rounded on the others, looking past them into the shadows. "Someone… that scumbag!"
"U-Undyne! Undyne, please!" Alphys stood right in front of her, holding out placating hands. "Please calm down. M-maybe you just left it somewhere-"
"No. No. He took it from me. That stupid punk. That piece of filth."
Alphys knew who she meant. "We don't know if Sans-"
"He did." Undyne's tone left no room for argument. "You saw him last. Do you know where he went?"
"I… don't." Alphys looked to her feet. "I haven't seen him since yesterday."
"That's typical of him. Papyrus always said how he'd just-" The warrior choked angrily, her arm shaking. Her pupil dilated, showing more teeth as she grimaced. "I need to find him. I need to get Papyrus back."
"L-look, it's okay. Um, come here?" Alphys gestured for Undyne to follow, away from the monster group. Each and every time, they looked at Undyne like a new, scary visitor. And she couldn't blame them. She could barely stand it herself.
She pointedly took them both down the hallway that lead to the front lobby, with its assortment of withered ficus that lined the walls and the vending machine that was dangerously running low on contents.
Undyne had lost focus as she walked. Her hand kept reaching for her neck, and each time her eye widened in remembered pain and anger. Hissing breaths moved through her, but Alphys was too afraid to give her any sort of physical comfort. Undyne's arm kept twitching, so desperate to lob her spear at someone.
But… it wasn't like she thought Undyne would actually hurt her. No. No, she didn't think that.
Once they stopped, Undyne looked around. "Wait. Why are we way out here?
Alphys took a deep breath. "So… um… I… I might have lied a little."
Her friend said nothing. The doctor didn't wait for her to fill up that silence.
"I-I mean, I think I do know where he is. It's just… out of the way. And I might be wrong a-anyway. It was just last I checked the cameras, and it's been hours and-"
"So where is he?" Undyne asked impatiently.
"In… below. The power room. It's the only place where none of the others can get to. Not without keys." She pulled out said keys, all four, each of alternating colors, from the keychain of her phone. "The door's here."
She expected Undyne to question how Sans could have gotten through without the keys. Instead, she signed in annoyance. "Of course. Whatever." Then her eye widened. "Well, come on. Let's go!"
She wished Undyne had questioned her. Because she wanted so badly to talk about it now. The fact that Sans already knew of her failures 'might wanna check up on Lemon Bread soon' and whatever else. Just how incredibly plain were her secrets?
But Undyne hadn't cared much when Endogeny showed up, so why did she expect anything more? She hadn't cared much about anything ever since the human's death, despite her fill of determination.
Alphys had never fully understood how determination exactly worked… If she did, she might have had the answers. She might have actually been helpful. But she never did. All she had gotten was more questions, and all she had done was hurt more people.
She inserted the keys into the doors. They swished open.
The shuffles of the amalgamates were too clear here.
Alphys could barely look at Undyne as they walked forward. She saw Reaperbird hovering by the wall, giant eyes blinking, speaking over itself with distaste for its own self. The Snowdrake was practically melted to the floor, sad eyes blinking, continually calling out to her son, breaking Alphys' heart all over again. Lemon Bread had blocked the doorway to the control room. They kept repeating themselves and repeating themselves I'm hungry I'm hungry I'm hungry, and only leaving when Undyne showed no reaction to them. Just a glare, just a soft frown, and the creature shuffled away. Parts of themselves were falling all over, and Alphys knew she would have to recheck them again, to make sure they didn't completely lose themselves into something intangible. She was cruel enough to make them live, only for that. She knew no mercy to let them finally separate into dead masses.
She wanted Undyne to talk with her, to get mad at knowing what had been going down in this lab all this time. But the warrior's attention was drawn away, leaving her as an unnecessary memory. They both headed for the power room, its shadows incredibly unwelcoming.
Despite it being the source of power for most of the laboratory's equipment, the light itself never seemed to work here. The only source of illumination came from Undyne, her eye shining across the tiled floors. Sans didn't even try to hide. He stood there in the middle of the room, standing before the giant power transformer that connected to snaking black pipes, its very center sporting the red imprint of the soul, encased tightly within its box imprint. His hands were in his pockets.
"sup?"
The scarf was around his neck.
Alphys tried to intervene the coming disaster. "Guys, we can talk about this! We can-"
Undyne jumped forward, leaping from the doorway all to way to within the room's center. It was quick and unexpected. Sans himself didn't seem to anticipate that. Eye sockets widened just slightly before he slid away to the side, slippers making a soft hush against the floor. A spear embedded itself against his previous spot, cracks reaching out across the surface.
Alphys froze.
Undyne wrenched it out, turning to the skeleton. She pointed the spear tip at his chest. "Give it back."
A bead of sweat slid down his forehead. Other than that, he smiled the same as ever. "don't know what you mean."
"Don't be a smartass with me!" Undyne's voice was as rough and unrefined as grinding rocks, her teeth clamped against each other tightly. "That doesn't belong to you!"
"funny." Sans gave a half-shrug. "cuz i don't think it belongs to you either."
He placed one hand against the scarf, just barely, a fingertip only lightly pressing against the material.
Undyne dashed forward again, lobbing another spear through the air. Sans shifted away, gripping that scarf closer to his neck. The spear just grazed against his coat, slightly ripping it, then dematerialized before it could hit anything else.
"hey, undyne," Sans said with no humor at all. "i think i get the point."
When Undyne stood tall, Alphys saw the woman she had seen through the cameras; a being of pure will and righteousness, a heroine who could feel everyone's hearts, giving her the strength to strike the down that murderer who had come out of the abandoned Ruins. She had smiled as the human struck at her, taking its hits so easily, grinning wide as her magic took hold and pinned it to the wall. She had smiled and laughed throughout the fight, and Alphys, feeling hope well within her, had laughed along with her.
Undyne was not smiling now. She stood tall in her dark armor, ominous and different, different in the way that brushed everything away. Her light swerved toward Sans again, the light suddenly turning green. Sans stayed where he was, sweat dripping down his skull as he watched her. It was hard to tell, but Alphys recognized that magic that surrounded him. The skeleton was unable to move.
Undyne summoned another spear in hand, pulling back her arm. "No, you don't get it at all."
Alphys found herself screaming as she watched… almost. It came out more like a wheeze, her breath leaving her so fast that it threatened to leave her choking in this stale air, this same stale air where she had exiled the other amalgamates to because she was so cowardly, so cowardly and weak and too afraid to let anyone know-
Sans' arm shifted, and a giant skeletal head was pulled from the darkness behind him. Its elongated snout faced Undyne, sharp canines seeping from its mouth, hovering just before Sans. It took the brunt force of the blow, the spear piercing its very center. Bone cracked, and strange, wide eyes shifted from the head's sockets, uneven almost, but nothing else. Sans was almost completely engulfed in its shadow, but the scarf he wore was so bright that it stood out against the black.
The skeleton gave a hollow laugh, so much like how he laughed in front of Alphys yesterday, soft and almost inaudible, speaking of bad dreams and bad ends. "you're not even trying with me, are you?"
Undyne was still mad, but not at the attack, and not at his words. Her eye roved past the head towards the skeleton, skulking in the dark. "I'm not going to kill you, you punk. I know you can barely take a hit." She grinned bitterly. "I'm just going to beat you senseless instead."
The giant animal head pulled away, disappearing just as fast as it had come. Sans was still laughing, the lights in his eyes all but dead, his skull nothing more than a dried out husk.
"that's pretty useless. i'm not going to give this back if you don't try."
Undyne's growl showed off teeth. She vented aloud her frustration, the shout reverberating around the metal equipment. Her constant swerving light only brightened, bleaching the paleness of Sans' skull.
"You're not determined enough to do anything except at being a sneaky little freak."
Light illuminated, blue and yellow, dripping out of Sans' left eye socket. "it's what i do best."
Sans kept gripping onto that scarf like it was his lifeline, as if the very touch of it could keep him grounded. He extended his hand, and the blue magic messed with Undyne's sense of gravity, pushing her down against the floor. Not by much though. She only flinched, knees trembling underneath some unseen weight on her shoulders. But her hold on her own green magic had loosened, and Sans escaped that grip, sliding away as orbs of white lit up the ground beneath Undyne's feet.
She didn't dodge from it. She took the bones that stabbed at her, its blunt points scraping against her armor with grinding screeches, the rest slicing through her scales, splashing blackness to floor. She shuddered, her frown only deepening, and with a loud, raging scream, she swiped at the field of bones that surrounded her, cutting her way through with a sharp, green light. The shattered remains of ribs and clavicles and femurs fell around her like hard rain.
Sans tilted his head, stuck in his rictus grin, eye sockets extinguished to complete absence. "that's gonna hurt to-marrow, heh."
Undyne's light snagged onto the scarf, her grimace a jealous thing. "It will, won't it?" Her fingers twitched, and a ring of spears encircled Sans, their sharpened points only inches away.
Alphys blinked. The spears vanished, and Sans had moved. But so had Undyne, flashes of light streaking across the air, magic overriding the hum of electricity around the room. Then she panicked.
"Guys! There's – t-there's a lot of fragile equipment here!" The ground shook from some unseen impact. "H-hey! Guys!" Her voice was shrill but weak. Eyes of blinding light and burning sapphire never turned to her once.
Sans continually vanished, or sidestepped, coat flapping as a spear tip only cut air. It repeated; his disappearing act, his practiced dodges, and Undyne's near misses. The skeleton still had his hands in his pockets, but the bones rushed out from nowhere, flying through the air as fast as her spears. Undyne swatted them away, their form snapping into pieces as they crashed into the ground. It was beyond luck that no bone shrapnel embedded itself into any overhanging wires, or into any of the dashboards…
"Wouldn't it have been nice," Undyne said, knocking away the last projectile with the front of her arm. A sharp clang rung throughout the room, louder than the others. "If you showed any of this energy while Papyrus was alive?"
Alphys saw Sans stutter, too faint, a swift backstep with his right foot. The glowing eye in his skull flickered before returning to its full intensity. Not faint enough, because Undyne, finally, smiled at that, mirthless and unhappy and vengeful.
Sans forever returned that gesture. "it's hard to give it my all. i'm barely doing it now."
Undyne made clear her disbelief. "You wouldn't be sweating that much if that were true."
And he was. He looked like he was drowning.
Sans kept trying to find windows. A space of a breath to wink away like he always did, to walk off through the doorway and disappear through space and time. But Undyne was determined and merciless, and she rooted him back within makeshift walls, forcing him to summon shields of rib cages, or silently screeching heads. Those same heads would unhinge their jaws, first to reveal blackness, and then beams of light. Alphys couldn't believe it when such an attack had been thrown, able to feel the heat, the light magnifying in her glasses. But Undyne was not a dodger, and she took that force head on, with only a hair strand slightly singed as a result. The skeleton did not look at all surprised.
Papyrus' scarf was large around Sans' neck. He had to wind it around him three times more than Undyne had. He wound it a fourth time again after another of his escapes, and the clothing hid his grin, leaving only one empty eye socket, and one eye full of flashing blue and yellow. The skeletal animal heads that shifted out from the darkness decreased in number, and sweat dripped down his forehead, dripping to the floor, as Undyne's bleeding scars did.
And then.
His soft misstep. Her quick lunge. The animal head opened its maw, hovering before Sans, and went forward to meet with Undyne's charge. With the most impatient of yells, she placed a hand against the head's snout and pushed it to the side. It rebounded against the floor, and crashed into the wall, sending debris of metal and bone on impact. Alphys whined at work gone, though dimly thankful that had not been one of the machines necessary to supply the power.
Undyne cast her green magic on the skeleton again, and before he could be quick enough to react – and he was always too quick, scurrying around like a cockroach or like a shadow that much preferred its place in the abyss – Undyne leapt toward him, landing in front of him. She gripped his shoulder, and stabbed her spear downwards.
Alphys screamed. "No!"
Except.
Except the fight up to this point had been strange, tensing Alphys' chest, knowing it made no sense. Neither had been going for a kill. Undyne had said it herself. The magic of their souls, though so rife with anger and resentment, held no intent for the other's death. It only called for something to be finished. But not death. The energy that Sans' blaster heads had spewed forth had barely hurt the warrior to begin with, and even Undyne' spears had lacked the wickedness from when she had fought the human.
So Alphys didn't feel that now as she saw Undyne strike Sans down. Or thought she saw. She creaked open her eyelids, unaware she had closed them the moment Undyne had lifted her spear high in the air.
She looked.
Sans was on his knees, pushed down by Undyne's strength. The spear had not missed, but it had not struck where Alphys had first thought. (And what did she think? That it would've pierced his head? His chest?) The point had embedded itself into his right hand, pinning it to the floor. Sans, with his smile, was shaking. His still blank eye sockets roved to that hand, seeing how the spear had cut through bone so neatly, to make a sort-of circular indentation, one that had sawed all the way through.
For some reason, Alphys thought the sight familiar. Somehow. And somehow, Sans thought that to. She saw his grin widen, saw the light come back to his eyes, and there was a recognition there that made her fear Sans intensely.
Undyne was gripping the scarf.
"This doesn't belong to you."
With a free hand, Sans grabbed the scarf before it could completely unfurl. "no."
He was shaking.
Undyne was not smiling or laughing. She was as somber as stone, as emotionless as one. "Give it back."
The very faint hint of a frown tugged at Sans' cheekbones. He pulled at the scarf harder, keeping it with him. His arm trembled. Sweat continued to drip down his skull. "no."
An angry growl. Undyne's face twitched. "You've been trying to listen for him all this time, haven't you? But you never heard anything, right? That's proof that this doesn't belong to you."
Sans trembled even more.
"You had your chance." She tugged harder.
Sans knocked aside the spear pinning his other hand. The fracture within his palm was plain. A mark, but that was it. Nothing fatal, nothing much to turn someone to dust, not even someone like him.
He held onto the scarf with both hands, struggling to keep it with him.
"papyrus-"
Undyne placed a boot against his chest and pushed him roughly away.
Sans lost balance, lost all strength. His fingers slipped away from the scarf. A sharp tear could be heard. He landed on his back.
Undyne clutched the scarf to her chest.
It grew quiet.
Alphys cleared her throat, swallowing any excess saliva. She felt so unclean suddenly, more than usual. She tried to step around some metal debris, but could only shuffle at most, too afraid to intrude.
"Why were you waiting for me?"
Undyne picked up her head. Her hands reflexively tightened Papyrus' scarf around her neck, fitting her well. They had been nearly the same height, the same build. It was to be expected.
Sans struggled to a sitting position. His rib bones clattered against each other, their sound muffled by his thick jacket.
"it doesn't really matter."
He slouched over then. He was some massless lump in the darkness, with barely an inflection in his voice.
"none of it matters."
Undyne didn't turn away. She gave a sigh, her hair moving with the motion. It had become partially untied during the fight, the free strands splaying down her neck.
"That's not an excuse and you know it."
Sans raised his head. Alphys thought she could hear how he grinded his teeth, stuck in that smile.
"it'll just reset-"
"I know that."
Sans' face was a wasteland, absent, gone. A complete mask. Undyne did not react to that expression, did not care.
"The moment I took that human's soul, I knew. And you know what?" She frowned, instilling her light onto Sans' face. "It makes no difference. It might have killed me those other times, but not now. And even if everything starts over…" She clenched her fist. "I won't stand back and just let it do what it wants. I don't care how many times everything repeats. I'll make sure to give it a hard time each and every round."
Sans stared at her, like she had suddenly grown three heads. "heh, that's just what it wants." Another chuckle, sad and empty. "once it's done with its break, it'll just start again."
"Maybe," Undyne admitted. "I doubt it though."
Suspicion was Sans' expression, his gaze hardening. "uh, did i miss something?"
Undyne kept clenching and unclenching her hands. She briefly looked down at a dark glove, its tip sharp with claws. "I won't ever give up. I'll hold onto this form for as long as I can."
"what-" And then Sans knew.
And so did Alphys.
The knowledge was always there, but, it was the realization, the very meaning of it all that made her stop still. Undyne had pulled herself together through determination, defying death to stay strong, risking life and sanity. Monsters were usually so intangible, reduced to nothing but dust, but she had reached out, made herself solid and real, and oh, it had been so stupid of Alphys to think that Undyne could keep that form forever. But it was Undyne, and Undyne was strong, and couldn't she keep going-
The wounds on her arms hadn't healed yet. They leaked black liquid that dripped onto the floor. Not a problem. They would only leave scars. That's right. They would only leave scars…
"so it still doesn't matter," Sans was saying, and Alphys had never had such an urge to hit someone. The way he brushed away Undyne's strength as if it were nothing. "it's still useless."
Undyne sighed again. There was frustration in that sigh. She looked down at the skeleton with such disapproval – no, disappointment. "Nothing's useless. Everything has consequences. They always do."
Sans wouldn't look at her now.
"What you let happen to Papyrus will always stay. Even if he doesn't remember. Even if you don't."
"i know that."
A brief growl. "Then why do you keep making the same mistake then?!"
Nothing.
There was nothing more to be said.
Undyne turned to leave. She patted the scarf tenderly, held it close to her with the smallest of apologies. "Sorry, I tried. I really did."
That whisper sent a flinch through Sans' bones again. But Alphys could not read his face at all this time. It was as blank as the floor.
Undyne nodded occasionally, listening to unheard things. She edged a glance at the skeleton. "He still worries over you."
"don't rub it in."
She shrugged.
The warrior raised her head to the doorway, over to Alphys. She walked forward, her march even and fine. Waves of determination radiated from her stance, an aura that Alphys thought she could physically see. It made Undyne's scarf billow, made her eye shine bright. It even made her face look so benevolent and real.
Alphys restricted the urge to rub at her eyes frantically. "Are you…?"
Undyne stared at her. She was smiling, and it was the first kind of smile that actually looked like-
Suddenly, there was the grating sound of meowing cats.
Alphys turned a brilliant shade of red that overrode her scales. Undyne blinked, and even Sans, who had now gotten to his feet, turned to her curiously.
With clammy hands, she reached for the cellphone that just wouldn't stop ringing. Its front display lit up furiously as it meowed out the full opening theme of her favorite anime, meanwhile showing off a big-eyed humanoid character at her lock screen.
"I, uh, I-I t-thought I had it on s-silent," she tried explaining. Neither Undyne or Sans would give her a response, which made her nervous again, which in turn made her answer the phone instead of just turning it off, all the while missing who the name of the caller was.
"H-hello?" she greeted reflexively. Her mouth was so dry, and the words that came out of her throat felt like lint. Her caller spoke, his deep, gentle voice both shocking and calming her at the same time. "King Asgore? I…"
Undyne's eye widened. She took another step forward. Alphys stepped back, keeping the phone by her ear. "King Asgore, I… I thought you were still… O-oh, you're done?" She blinked. "Y-you're here!?"
Undyne moved closer. She looked ready to take the phone away from Alphys.
"I- I understand! Sorry, I just had…" She looked around the ruined power room. "Just had some things to fix up. I'll be right t-there!" A pause. "Y-yeah, Undyne's here. I'll bring her, too."
She hung up, then looked to a looming Undyne. "Um, that was-"
"Let's go meet him," Undyne interrupted. She turned around, back to the skeleton who stood there, hands in his pockets like nothing happened. "Are you coming?" she asked him, her voice still thrumming with remembered adrenaline.
Sans didn't answer. He smiled down at the floor, bones perfectly still.
Undyne groaned. "The hell are you doing now?"
The smile grew tight. "waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
"i'm sure you know."
He turned his head, the light from the hallway painting only half his face, cleaving his skull. Alphys couldn't look at him for very long.
She was grateful for Undyne's hand on her shoulder. "Come on," she said, her voice empty. Gently, her friend led her out into the hallway. They both left Sans to wait there in the dark.
She was glad to go.