When Alphys finally pried the door open, the smell was the first thing she noticed: Ozone, melted plastic, and burnt wires. Oh no.

"Mettaton!" She ran to the scorch-marked center of the room, where the wreckage was. He looked bad: Face melted halfway off his metal skull, hair charred, torso heat-warped, and stray sparks crawling over his jittering arms and legs. He must've had a massive power surge, taken a charge too big for his wiring to handle. But how…?

She tore her eyes from his wrecked chassis long enough to spot what was left of the human. Oh.

"Mettaton, you… you tried t-to absorb their soul, didn't you?"

"I-I-I-I-I-I…" His voicebox was malfunctioning, too damaged to answer her. He lapsed into silence, staring glassily up at her like a broken doll.

"Do you know h-how hard it was to make your body s-sturdy enough to hold your soul without melting? If I w-was gonna build something to absorb a human soul, I, I'd build a tank! A tank as big as a house!"

Alphys sank to the floor, trembling.

"B-but that's not what you wanted to be. You w-w-wanted…" Her voice caught in her throat. He'd wanted this, but not this. He'd wanted something shiny and pretty and human-shaped and that was it, but she'd wanted to impress King Asgore and added all those anti-human combat features Mettaton didn't want, and now… And now he'd gone and used them. If she'd just built him the way he wanted, would the human still be alive?

"…fiiiissss…?"

Alphys jumped at the sound of Mettaton's broken voice.

"Wh-what?" she squeaked.

One of his arms rose from the floor, wobbling and snapping back and forth like a downed power line. Laboriously, he pointed a finger at her.

"C-c-c-c-can fffffffix?"

Alphys shuddered. His distorted voice reminded her of the amalgamates in her lab.

"I-I think I could repair some of this damage, but most of you I'd just have to rebuild, if that would even be worth it…"

"Aaaah?"

"Y-you were broadcasting, right? E-everyone in the whole Underground either made friends with the human or wanted Asgore to take their soul, a-and now everyone knows you killed them. I mean, e-even if some of your fans really did want you to t-take the soul yourself, you… didn't. Do y-you want people to be able to recognize you right now?"

He couldn't answer. He couldn't even frown, with his face like that. Alphys could tell it was all starting to sink in, though; she saw it in his eye. The good one. The laser one had melted shut.

"I guess we should get you, get you back to the lab," she murmured, "And then I'll d-do what I can, I guess…"

Her eyes watered as she shakily stood. She knew she should be mad at Mettaton—he murdered a child—but right now she could only wonder what would become of his ruined body, this devastated vessel he'd once loved enough to corporealize in. She couldn't help but picture him sitting in her secret basement lab forever, another exhibit in the menagerie of misery and shame that lived there. One more horror to hide from the world. One more monster she'd let down.