Asriel looked at the machine before him with pure fear in his eyes. He certainly expected something like that but he definitely hadn't thought of how to react or what to do at the time of taking action.
"There's no going back, right?" Asriel said accepting what was about to come.
"Nope, this is it …" Alphys sighed '' Asriel l-listen, I know what you think and b-believe me rightfully so, you could die!"
"Thanks, Alphys, Your optimistic encouragement words are appreciated" Asriel answered with a disappointed and frightened look.
"O-oh my, I-I'm sorry, hehe," Alphys said laughing nervously, after that she then continued "What I was going to say after that was that if Frisk could manage all of the Underground she's going to be able to do this, and you'll achieve it too"
"How can you be so sure I'm going to make it?" Asriel asked.
"Frisk gave you her soul, you must be very special to her …" said the reptile pointing to the boy's chest "And between you and me, I know what it feels like to be able to do anything for someone you appreciate" Alphys finished.
Asriel blushed a little and also thought about what the reptile had just said ... You must be very special to her ... those words were spinning around the child's head and although it gave him some confidence, security and genuinely cheered him in a way that, for the little one was something peculiar, they were also an extra weight to the pressure that he was putting himself and his confidence on getting out of this with Frisk. He was more than willing to try anything to help Alphys get the human back but then again, that was easier said than done.
"Sorry if I just seem to be p-projecting into you, it's just that I really do have faith that this will work out, I want to a-amend my mistakes," Alphys said with a sad tone.
"Oh, don't worry ... It's good to hear that, I think I needed it" said Asriel smiling then facing the machine once again. "And ... How's this working? I sit on one side and you put her on the other?"
"What?" Alphys said looking up "Oh, we're not going to use that huge thing, now that would be crazy, follow me," said Alphys signalling towards an elevator.
Asriel exhaled loudly, then turned to the scientist "Alphys"
"Yes?" Looking at the boy.
"I would appreciate if next time you spare me from having a heart attack" Asriel answered with a look between angry and scared.
"O-Oh, I'm so sorry. I'll keep that in mind, I think I should… I should take that apart." Alphys replied laughing nervously.
"LOOK OUT! BEHIND YOU!" Chara yelled.
Frisk barely reacted to dodge the attack of her very powerful enemy, when Chara said he would arrive she didn't expect him to find them that easily or so fast and the worst thing was that he had the advantage and by far, his attacks were strong, devastating and precise enough to the point of almost vaporizing Chara at a certain point.
Damn is he strong. Frisk thought while smiling. Perfect.
Damn it, Frisk you better make this work. Chara thought.
"It will work, It has to" Frisk replied.
Its power was a double-edged sword for both humans, each time the attacks of the entity were more devastating but more erratic and unstable just what Frisk wanted to collapse the place, although of course being more unstable means triple the risk than in their first encounter.
Each attack they dodged was a step forward to get out of the emptiness they were in. However, the key to getting out of there was also to come out in one piece. Gaster nevertheless sent them a warning of how much power he possessed. He attacked with a blaster that although they dodged his projectile, they were not so lucky with the explosion that came from behind. Both humans received an extremely strong blow.
Frisk and Chara rolled several meters back after receiving the blow of the shockwave, dazed Frisk tried to recover her senses and get back on track after that unforeseen attack.
"That... I didn't see coming" Frisk said as she stood up with some difficulty. "It's very powerful Chara we mus-" Frisk paused to see with fear a motionless Chara thrown at a short distance. Oh no, no, no.
Frisk suddenly received a blow from the entity, a direct and quite devastating blow. She fell a few meters to be stopped from a strong invisible wall that seemed to be the limit of emptiness. She was quite wounded and weak when she recovered partially from the blow she tried to stand up but could barely get it half-held with one hand. She knew that in this case she only had one advantage and that was that the place would soon collapse to the rhythm of Gaster's attacks.
Frisk approached Chara and managed to get completely upright, then looked at the ground with a blank expression, she looked exhausted and weak. Frisk gathered the little breath he had left.
"Come on! Let's get this over with!" Frisk yelled
Gaster just smiled at the act of desperate rage from the human and proceeded to charge an attack with huge devastating power. Frisk looked up as he grabbed Chara's arm with a triumphant smile. Asriel, everything's on you now.
Those were the last thoughts of the brown-haired girl when Gaster finished loading his attack making the place collapse itself.
Going down the elevator Asriel was surprised to see that what was below was not anything like the machine he saw above, it was something more like a well-implemented surgery room, the first thing that caught his attention was that there were only two chairs, a table with several objects and many of them were band-aids and medical tapes with one another syringe next to a bottle of pills. However, the table at the end of the room had two test tubes, one empty with a border to pass the substance that was put there to another place and another with something bright red shining the same colour as Frisk's soul but with a slightly more bright tone.
"Alright, Asriel p-please take a seat, this should not take long if everything goes well," Alphys said looking at the red tube and taking the syringe along with the empty test tube.
"What's that red in the tube?"
"Determination," Alphys said causing Asriel to get confused a little "And believe me it's not easy to get ... N-Nor manipulate"
"I always thought that determination was something more similar to our magic and not something that can be ... used in others " said Asriel
"Well that's something more complicated, human spells are more based on applying them to themselves than using them in a-against something as are o-ours " Alphys said while taking a sample of the determination in the tube "That was the factor that condemned us to lose the battle against humans, they do not physically undo when the d-die and are more resilient to wounds e-even without their spells ... Their spells were absurdly resilient, a single sorcerer could take down hundreds of o-our troops, and in the end, your f-father had no choice but to step back and announce our surrender …" Alphys finished as she put both tubes in its place.
"Yeah, Dad talked about that sometimes, have we ever managed to beat one?" Asriel asked.
Alphys proceeded to point to the test tube.
"Oh …" Asriel said a little uneasy knowing that what they were going to use was a dead human.
"You can already imagine why it's so hard to get it," Alphys said, "Ok, what's coming now is going to be what you define if we c-can move on, okay Asriel, you see the difference of t-tones between this and the soul Frisk?" Alphys told him as he pointed to the determination on the syringe.
Asriel just nodded
"Well we have to do, is to make it the same tone, once it is compatible with her soul the rest will be easier for your own energy to rebuild your soul, and that's precisely for what I need you, I need your part of her soul "Alphys finished.
"O-ok," Asriel said quite scared as he carefully placed Frisk in the other chair. "What do you need Alphys to do?" Asriel said as he levitated his soul in his hand.
"Well I need you to concentrate, I-I'm not going to lie to you this is going to hurt and then you're going to feel weaker, b-but it shouldn't take more than 30 seconds," Alphys said.
"I guess you can't use Frisk's half, but why?" Asriel asked looking at Frisk
"Because she's too unstable, whatever we do we can not touch her soul for anything more than when the m-mixing procedure is ready, any c-change in that half and we could make it worse. "
Asriel turned to see Alphys. "Mixing process?" Asriel asked something lost with what Alphys told him.
"The souls of monsters that I tested with determination r-reacted reconstructing itself, however, the determination's... "energy" i-is too powerful and o-our bodies don't resist it," Alphys said trying to suppress the chills remembering the amalgams. "But Frisk is human, so she will tolerate just fine the determination influx, but I need something of the essence of the part that you have of her soul to stabilize the process, I do not want it to go wrong and make her soul to totally collapse" Alphys explained.
Asriel now felt much safer about the whole situation, you could say that even for the first time in a long time he felt ... optimistic about the situation.
"By the way, I need you to take these," Alphys said as he showed her two small blue pills with a rather distinctive luminous aqua blue tone.
"What are these?" Asriel asked.
"They are echo pills," said Alphys "They raise your DEF level and help your soul not collapse to get the essence I need from your human part"
"Well, there's no going back now.." Asriel said with some nervousness, but very sure that he was going to help in what was his due.
Toriel was moving from one place to another; she and Asgore were quite worried waiting in the laboratory of Alphys, Asgore at some point in time would have been the first to calm her down and tell her that everything would be fine. However with their last conversation, before Asriel brought Frisk to the palace, Asgore felt himself walking on eggshells every time they looked at each other.
Come on Asgore, say something. The last thing you want is for her to believe that this doesn't matter to you. Asgore thought ... But what do I tell her? she has all the reasons in the world to be worried, it's not as if I could say "Hey Tori, we know that our son is in an ultra-dangerous situation from which he can be seriously injured or worse, but do not worry everything is going to be well!" In addition to what Alphys said about the process and what it involves, it does not help tha-
"Asgore …" Toriel said in a slightly sad tone
Asgore immediately looked at her "Yes? Tori ... Toriel?" He replied somewhat nervously.
"I do not want to lose him again ... I do not want Frisk to die. Do you really think Alphys can do this? And please be sincere" ended toriel holding back the tears.
Asgore stood up "You will not find someone better for this, it's her speciality"
"I always thought that I would be the best mother for my children ... I I-I do not want to fail them again, not after all this" Toriel said with a broken voice as she leaned against the wall and dropped down to sit on the floor
Asgore approached the anguished goat then proceeded to crouch and stare into her eyes, she looked distressed and somehow lost, it did not seem to be herself. However, Asgore noticed something in those crimson eyes ... Fear.
Fear of losing her son and the human that surely broke her heart having to let her go to this world, she was in a state in which broke his heart to see he also knew that it was largely his fault, right now it seemed that at any moment the goat would have a mental breakdown of just thinking about the worst.
Asgore noticed that she looked at him again, he had a rather sad expression "Tori you have to stop torturing yourself like this" Asgore said.
Toriel looked at him somewhat annoyed "Asgore I know you probably think that this is just another passage for you and your disdain for life, but understand that I can not just stay expectant of how our son could die again" Toriel emphatically and with her eyes irritated from crying.
Asgore remained calm "I'm not saying you should not worry, I know what is at risk but what you are saying right now is not you saying that" He finished, keeping calm.
"I am very serious with what I said about you," Toriel said quite emphatically referring to the monarch.
"I know that," He said in a sad tone "I mean what you say about yourself, and how you talk about what you failed as a mother. That is not true, and to believe it is not a mistake that you want to commit, nor that I want you to commit," said Asgore.
Toriel remained speechless, after a moment she looked back to Asgore "How would you know any of that? You killed the humans who wanted to go out, you did exactly the opposite of what I wanted to accomplish."
"And that is precisely why I am telling you this, that is a mistake that I have made and never plan to do again, I lost myself thinking that I had failed as a father because I could not prevent Chara and Asriel from getting killed by humans, I did not think about the consequences of not control my anger, and I condemned 6 lives for that" Asgore said with a regretful tone. "I think it's time to let our bad thoughts dictate our actions, I believe that if that human was able to bring our Asriel back, Asriel will definitely be able to do the same with her, no matter what happened before"
Toriel was astonished, although she could see that Asgore was remarkably sorry for her behaviour. She thought that his confidence in the matter was due to someone in his charge taking care of the situation and not because he really cared about the human. After a moment, Toriel answered.
"Asgore, I understand that but what really worries me is that what he is going to do can kill him and Alphys does not even know that there is even a guarantee that everything will be fine, even if he manages to bring her back" said Toriel a little calmer "If he's going to go to a house on fire, I want to know how much fire there is," said the goat drying her tears.
"Look, I understand if you're scared but what-"
"Do not talk to me about being scared, Asgore!" Interrupted Toriel with an offended tone "At this moment I don't even know what house he is in!"
"When Undyne, the skeleton, and you went for the human alone and asked the rest of us to stay here even though no one knew who had her. Did I discuss it? "Asgore said.
Toriel wanted to say something but ultimately, she sighed "... No"
"Because I trusted you ... We all did it, I only ask you to trust Asriel and Alphys …" Asgore said "I know it's a lot to ask in our circumstances, but now I do not want to keep thinking about how bad things can get, I believe in Asriel and I know that you too believe in him, so please do not continue with this, stop torturing yourself Tori, please" Asgore finished
Toriel was somewhat surprised by how understanding Asgore was being with her, although it is true that she was still disgusted by what he did in regards of the humans, she could see that now that she had the opportunity to do things right, she would take it. Truthfully, she was also tired of living in fear of the worst, and above all, of hiding. She wanted to do the best she could as long as what followed from now on was a deserved happy ending, so if she was going to get rid of her old habits, better do it now. Slowly Toriel stood up "... I-I'll try ... And ... Thank you. I needed to hear something like that ... It's not worth it to stagnate in the past," said Toriel.
Asgore smiled at her, glad that she heard him. Maybe he still had things he could do to help Toriel.
Asriel felt as if his vital energy was getting sucked out of him after the immense pain of the initial prick in the red zone of his soul reduced the task of concentration and maintaining composure were his number one priority. However, the fact that the pain of the procedure was still quite strong did not help much.
Alphys was operating with precision that would put industrial assemblers to shame, her accuracy was perfect when placing the needle without damaging the soul of Asriel and was making sure to take what was necessary from his soul part in a millimetric way, however Asriel could barely keep his balance in the chair, Alphys became aware of this and tried to encourage the boy.
"Asriel, stay with me, w-we're almost f-finished," Said the reptile continuing to be as careful with the procedure "Frisk will r-return soon"
"Alphys ..." Asriel said almost breathless and with an immense difficulty to get it back "It burns ... I'm can't take it much more …" He finished weakly while doing what he could not to collapse.
Alphys in a quick but very precise movement withdrew the needle, Asriel took a deep breath putting his hand on his chest while his soul was channelled back to his body. Alphys proceeded to mix the determination and essence of Frisk's soul, as the substances began to take on the tone of the girl's soul.
"Perfect," Alphys said as she poured the contents into the empty tube.
After covering the bottle the scientist went to the table at the end and proceeded to cover the tube with a lid that could be pierced by a needle. Alphys left the empty bottle on the table and went to the human with the tube that had the mixture. The reptile took the syringe and, with exceptional care, extracted the contents of the tube with it. When the syringe filled Alphys took a deep breath "Here we are Asriel, she will be as if nothing had happened when this we're done" Alphys said surprisingly without stuttering.
Asriel nodded, he was a little better but still had trouble breathing.
Alphys carefully put the needle into the Soul of the human and began to push the mixture into her soul. Alphys noticed that as she injected the mixture it took the shape of her missing half until in the end, her soul looked like it originally came to the Underground.
What Alphys didn't anticipate was that in the blink of an eye Frisk's eyes turned red to the sclera, they looked like lamps emitting red light.
"Frisk!" Alphys shouted as she took the human's face without knowing what to do "Asriel come, help her ..." Alphys fell silent as she turned to see the boy who also suffered the same predicament as the human only in his case the brightness his eyes emitted were aqua blue. Alphys did not have time to react to the shock wave of some kind of energy coming from both children.
Alphys fell to the floor, she quickly got up and saw that everything had suffered the impact of the wave, the test tubes on the floor, the broken syringe and other utensils scattered on the table, she then turned to look at Asriel and noticed that his eyes were no longer blue and he saw that he was regaining consciousness. Alphys went to help him instantly.
"Asriel, are you okay?" Alphys said as she helped the boy get up from the chair.
Asriel waited a moment for the dizziness to dissipate.
"Y-yes, what happened Alphys?" Asriel asked.
"I-I don't know... when the procedure was over, both your eyes were lit and then Frisk ..." Alphys stopped immediately, Asriel also realized the same as Alphys.
"Frisk," They both said and both looked at the chair where the human was and fortunately for them, she was still there.
About 3 seconds passed which Alphys and Asriel felt like it were hours until Frisk started moving and regaining consciousness, the reptile and the kid quickly went to where she was and Alphys prevented her from falling off the chair while Asriel waited for her to Frisk fully regain consciousness, which took about 30 seconds
The first thing that Frisk noticed when she woke up was her whole soul, she was quite confused by this, then she noticed Alphys, the human rubbed her eyes and when her vision cleared, she saw Alphys smiling and understood why her soul was complete.
"Welcome back," said Alphys smiling
"I knew if someone got me out of that one it was you," said Frisk smiling.
Frisk lifted her head as she realized that her soul was complete.
"Asriel! where is Asri-" Frisk turned her head to the left and there she saw it, his green eyes, his worried face that gave her a sense of tranquillity that she hadn't felt in a long time. Maybe this was all worth.
Asriel approached Frisk without taking his eyes off her and remarkably on the verge of crying, she was also about to cry, both proceeded to embrace each other, none could describe with words the feeling of security and happiness unmatched by having her in his arms and vice versa.
"Don't ever leave us again…" Asriel said with tears in her eyes and a brittle voice.
Frisk's heart melted because of Asriel tenderness.
"I don't plan on doing it Azzy …" Frisk said caressing Asriel's head.
What's important for now is that they had each other once more, and whatever came, they both felt that they could overcome it if they had each other.
So that's it for now, I'll try and post the next chapter sometime this month, hope you enjoyed the chapter!
