This chapter was a little indulgent of me really. I guess you could say this chapter is optional to read?
The week drags on slowly for both Undyne and Gaster. Undyne recovers much faster than Sans did from the injection. Probably because she's older and stronger. But Gaster writes down that it might just be different for all monsters. He gives her a break and sends her home to waterfall so she can relax properly. And of course during that time Gaster hangs out with his boys. Papyrus gets his stories read to him and Sans gets to work more on that machine with his dad. It all works out and the two don't suspect a thing.
"Dad, look at this. You screwed this in wrong. Hehe. What do you think would happen if we tried using it like this?" Sans says, pointing out a crooked screw inside the machine. It's really just an old elevator that the two have been modifying and transforming, but half of the fun was deconstructing it and putting it back together their way! Gaster leans in to look.
"HM. AN INTERESTING THOUGHT. /WOULD/ THIS SMALL MISTAKE EFECT WHAT WOULD HAPPEN? OR WOULD ALL GO SMOOTHLY? BEST NOT TO TEST THAT THOUGH." He says jokingly. The two chuckle.
Three other scientists approach the two. One cat looking monster, one… giant face coming from the ground looking monster, and a final very short wide eyed monster walk up and stay quiet. Gaster turns and spots them.
"AH HELLO EVERYONE. SANS, I HAVE TO GO FOR A BIT ALRIGHT?"
"Oh yeah?" Sans turns and sees the motley crew of scientists. He doesn't remember ever seeing them before… They're probably trainees and Gaster is the trainer or something. So Sans shrugs and nods.
"Sure thing pops."
"PLEASE DON'T MESS WITH THE MACHINE ALONE. YOU—"
"Never know what could happen, yeah yeah I got it. I was feelin' a break comin' on anyway."
Gaster nods and pats him on the shoulder, then walks off with the three. Sans watches after them though. He got a weird feeling from looking at them all. Their faces were trying to be straight, but he couldn't help the idea that there was something more serious going on… Maybe he's just thinking too much. Oh well.
Off in a side hallway, the four monsters stop and talk under their breaths.
"YOU FOOLS, NOW SANS HAS SEEN YOU. I TOLD YOU TO BE COVERT…" Gaster hisses angrily through his teeth. The three monsters shrink a bit.
"Sorry Doctor, we didn't know how else to get your attention. Are we going to get in trouble?"
Gaster sees that they're all apologetic, so he just takes a deep breath and sighs it out. Relax.
"NO. BUT PLEASE IN THE FUTURE DO TRY TO BE MORE CAREFUL. OUT OF EVERYONE IN THIS LAB, SANS IS THE ONE YOU SHOULD WATCH OUT FOR. HE'S VERY SMART AND PERCEPTIVE. IMPOSSIBLY SO SOMETIMES. A BIT TOO MUCH LIKE ME IN FACT… AVOID HAVING HIM SEE OR HEAR YOU AT ALL COSTS. NOW. YOU ALL KNOW WHY YOU'RE HERE."
The very short wide eyed monster nods.
"Yes sir. We're going to help you with some secret things."
"Wow." Says the pretty-much-all-face monster. "Very good number 1…"
"Oh shush three…"
Gaster assigned all of these new followers with numbers so that if things ever went bad, their real names wouldn't be known. Just numbers on a sheet of paper.
"ENOUGH. THIS NEXT MONDAY, I'LL NEED YOU ALL HERE AT EXACTLY 6 AM. IF YOU ARE LATE… WELL I WILL SHOW NO MERCY. DO YOU ALL UNDERSTAND ME?..."
His dark tone is highly suggestive and… honestly pretty scary. The three followers nod quickly.
"GOOD. I'M GOING TO CONTINUE MY… SIDE PROJECT, AND I NEED YOU ALL TO WATCH. YOU ARE MY EYES AND NOTHING MORE. YOU WILL NOT INTERACT WITH HER. YOU'LL GET ME ITEMS AND THEN LEAVE TO WATCH BEHIND THE GLASS WINDOW I'VE PREPARED. YOU CAN SEE IN, BUT THE GIRL AND I CANNOT SEE YOU. YOU WILL NOT SPEAK TO HER EITHER. IS THIS ALL CLEAR? IF YOU FOLLOW ALL OF THESE RULES, YOU'LL BE PAID REGULARLY. NORMALLY I'D PAY YOU MYSELF, BUT IF SANS NOTICES THE DIFFERENCE IN INCOME, HE'LL SURELY ASK AND I'D RATHER NOT BOTHER EXPLAINING IT. YOU'LL GET YOUR MONEY ONE WAY OR ANOTHER."
The three look at each other and nod.
The little meeting ends and the three of them disperse. Gaster returns to Sans who is writing some stuff down for the machine.
"HEHE. I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO TAKE A BREAK SANS."
"Huh? Oh hi. Yeah I couldn't sit still. You told me not to mess with it so I had to do something else. I came up with a few more equations that might have something to do with the anomalies in space. I dunno why, but space is easier for me to deal with than time. TOGETHER they're a damn nightmare though."
"INTERESTING. LET ME HAVE A LOOK." Gaster leans in and runs his finger along the page as he reads. Sans can't help but stare at his expressions. He tries very hard to act grown up so Gaster will take him seriously, but really he's still just a seventeen year old boy whose dad is the genius of the underground. He wants to impress him and make him proud! To help!
Gaster nods a few times and hums to himself.
"MY GOODNESS THESE ARE COMPLICATED. THEY DIDN'T TEACH YOU THIS IN SCHOOL."
"Nope. I read a bunch of the books we have here at the lab so I could… at least SORTA catch up to you. I can't let you hold my hand the whole way through you know. I gotta get some smarts of my own." He smiles up at his dad and attempts to make it look smug, but he just looks like the awkward teenager he is. Gaster chuckles and rubs Sans' head.
"SILLY BOY… YOU'RE FINE JUST THE WAY YOU ARE. JUST HAVING ANOTHER PAIR OF EYES IS EXTREMELY HELPFUL."
"I wanna help you know? Sitting around like a lazy sack of potatoes is probably the LAST thing I want to do with my life… Anyway uh, who were those three?"
Damn this observant child! Gaster wants to laugh with swelling pride and maybe a little bit of frustration as well. He can't seem to get anything past Sans.
"THE THREE WERE NEW ASSISTANTS. I WAS GIVING THEM AN ORIENTATION. THEY WON'T START FOR A WHILE THOUGH."
"Huh. Thought so."
Phew… bullet dodged.
()
Finally, that next Monday comes and at 6 AM, the three monsters arrive in Gaster's secret hidden room just like they were ordered to. Gaster walks into the experimentation room with Udyne several minutes later.
Undyne doesn't notice a thing.
"Man that was pretty shitty, that stuff."
"LANGUAGE."
"Oh my fu—mph! Whatever. So first of all, I'm sorta surprised that you gave me a break. What if something happened while I was gone and you didn't see it?"
"THEN THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN UNFORTUNATE AND OUT OF MY LINE OF FORESIGHT. A SHAME TO BE SURE. BUT I WAS 87% SURE NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN." Gaster prepares the other two syringes of red liquid and several more barf bags… This experiment may get messy. He just has this feeling…
"87% huh? What did you think the other 13% was?"
"THAT PERHAPS YOU'D BECOME DUST."
"Wow. Thanks for the confidence doc." Undyne takes off her boots and lets her webbed feet feel the coolness of the tile.
"Anyway, I'm ready! What are we doin' today?"
"WELL UNDYNE, TODAY WE'RE GOING TO BE INJECTING YOU WITH ONE SYRINGE OF THE LIQUID. AND THEN ONCE YOU FEEL BETTER, I WILL HAVE YOU /DRINK/ A VIAL OF IT. I CAN ASSUME THAT YOUR BODY WILL ADJUST TO THE SECOND INJECTION FASTER THAN THE FIRST TIME SINCE YOU'VE ALREADY DEALT WITH IT ONCE. HUMANS HAVE A VERY GOOD IMMUNE SYSTEM AND THEY WOULD PROBABLY HAVE NO ISSUES WITH SOMETHING LIKE THIS. THEY HAVE FAR MORE MASS THAN WE DO… BUT EVEN SO, MONSTERS ALSO HAVE AN IMMUNE SYSTEM TO FIGHT OF VARIOUS SICKNESSES, INCLUDING MAGIC SICKNESS. SO SINCE YOUR BODY HAS DEALT WITH THE INJECTION ONCE AND—"
"You're talkin' too much man! I think I get it. I'll do better this time around blah blah blah let's go already!" Undyne sighs loudly.
"YOUR IMPATIENCE IS IRRITATING… YOU HAVE TO HEAR ALL OF THE RULES AND KNOW AT LEAST MOST OF WHAT'S HAPPENING BEFORE CONDUCTING AN EXPERIMENT. YOU CAN'T JUST JUMP IN WILLY NILLY. WHAT IF I WAS GOING TO SAY SOMETHING AMAZINGLY IMPORTANT AND YOU'D JUST INTERRUPTED ME?"
"It must not have been if you're not gonna say it now huh?" Undyne grins at Gaster when he slumps and glares at her.
"PERT LITTLE BRAT… OH WELL. I SUPPOSE IT'S YOUR PERSONALITY… HERE WE GO THEN." Gaster walks up to her and sticks her in the same spot he did last time, and then stands back.
The experiment goes almost identically the same as the other one. She gets sweaty and sick to her stomach and then barfs a bunch. Nothing new there. "Almost" identical, because things are happening quicker than before. While before it took nearly two hours for everything to happen, this time it's happening in just half an hour. Undyne stays standing for much longer, even through her vomiting sessions. She's very resilient and Gaster is beginning to suspect even more now that she's actually capable of pulling this off.
Part of him is beginning to question the idea of making her DRINK the red liquid… injections are slow and smooth sailing through the blood stream, or magic stream depending on the type of monster. But DRINKING it… Ingesting the liquid might be too fast for a monsters boy to handle. This liquid is, after all, from a human soul. Soul… he wonders if he could put the red liquid directly into the souls of monsters. That… eh that's probably not a good idea. If he's second guessing the ingesting part, then the direct-to-soul part is out of the question. But ah, what an interesting thought.
Nine o clock comes and Undyne is doing very well. She's managed to force herself to stand this entire time out of sheer will power.
"WELL UNDYNE, IT'S BEEN EXACTLY THREE HOURS SINCE THE INJECTION. YOU'VE DONE INCREDIBLY AND I'M VERY IMPRESSED. WOULD YOU LIKE TO TAKE A BREAK? I COULD GET YOU SOME WATER IF YOU'D LIKE." Gaster finally looks away from her and down at his notes which he begins to edit and annotate.
With a heavy slump, Undyne sighs with relief at the idea of water. "I'd like that. I still feel sick, but I feel way better than before. I think I could even run laps if I really put my mind to it."
"HEH… NO NEED TO RUSH. YOU'LL BE DOING PHYSICAL TRAINING EVENTUALLY TO TEST HOW THIS IS ALL WORKING OUT FOR YOU. I'LL STEP OUT AND GET YOU SOME WATER THEN. YOU MAY SIT."
Gaster stands up while Undyne plops down on the bed. The three followers behind the glass in the secret room watch and have been writing everything down from their perspective this whole time. Once Gaster leaves Undyne's room, he heads to their room and pops in. He talks quietly.
"I HOPE YOU'RE ALL DOING WELL IN HERE ALSO? DO YOU WANT WATER AS WELL?"
"Th-that's really nice of you… I'd like some please." The first says. The other two nod along with them.
"VERY GOOD. KEEP A CLOSE EYE ON HER WHILE I'M GONE. JUST IN CASE."
"Yes sir." They all say together, and Gaster leaves.
"Wow, I wasn't expecting him to be… well I dunno, nice? Ish?"
"When we first met him he seemed pretty scary. Hehehe… If we were late today I think he would have dusted us…"
"Thrown us right into the CORE I bet."
The three have a small chuckle and then return their gazes to Undyne.
Gaster returns a couple minutes later with water and gives the three followers their drinks and then he returns to Undyne's room with hers.
"DO YOU FEEL ANY BETTER?"
Undyne nods and slams down the water, then puts the cup in the trash can. She stands up and takes several deep breaths and rolls her arms around.
"Yeah, much better. I'm ready for that second dose I think. Hand it over, let's speed this up!"
Undyne holds out a fishy hand and Gaster picks up the vial. The metal sounds of the other sharp tools on the tray echoes in the relatively small room.
"SO EAGER. JUST CALM DOWN. I HAVE THIS SUSPICION THAT YOU WONT BE SO HASTY TO CONTINUE AFTER THIS." He removes the syringe's push mechanism and hands it to her carefully. She takes it, careful not to spill and swigs it like a shot.
The face she makes… Gaster almost laughs, but he resists. Barely.
"AH GOD! This is terrible! Eugh! I've never tasted something so disgusting in my whole damn life!" Her ear fins perk up and twitch with disgust.
"OH GOOD, QUICK, TELL ME WHAT IT TASTES LIKE!" He can't stop an overly excited grin from bursting out.
"You are WAY too happy about this. Blech! Ah-uh-okay it tastes REALLY bitter, oh jeez! Uuuhhh…. Rotting! It tastes like something rotting! Oh my god I thought it would taste like watermelon or cherry or SOMETHING! Anything but this!" Undyne holds the vial out and covers her face with her free hand. Goodness it must really taste terrible! Heh heh.~
Finally the scientist lets out a snerk, unable to contain it.
"WATERMELON OR CHERRY? YOU POOR NAÏVE CHILD." He writes down everything and when Undyne stops complaining, the two stand there and say nothing.
But not for long. Symptoms quickly begin showing up.
A fever shows up and she gets dizzy and light headed. She squints to see straight and Gaster has to pretty much catch her at one point. Her equilibrium seems to be messed up. He lays her down and she starts groaning. Panic starts to set in.
"It hurts… Oh holy shit it's REALLY starting to hurt!"
"WHERE? HOW DOES IT HURT?"
"Just… everywhe—oohhhhhhh shit… Everywhere! My a… my arms… and my chest hurt…. I'm so hot…" She begins to breathe hard and shakily. Gaster wonders if he should… get some ice or something.
"UNDYNE, I'M GOING TO GET YOU SOME MORE WATER AND SOME ICE ALRIGHT?"
"Holy—oh my god hurry the hell up! This is-ooohhh my god!" Undyne starts to panic more. She's never felt this type of pain before. It feels like she's being cooked alive…
Gaster nods and stands up, walking over to the exit. The ice machine is just in the next room so he doesn't bother closing the door behind him when he rushes out. Undyne sits up in the bed, grabbing for a bag and preparing to throw up. But she can only dry heave after all of the vomiting she did before.
She stands up and tries to take deep breaths. But with her balance thrown off, she starts to lean forward. Her hand reaches forward and grabs the tray, but it tips under the pressure.
Gaster walks in just in time to see Undyne and the tray fall down… and a scalpel lodging itself deep into her left eye. He only just manages to close the door behind him when she starts screaming.
It's been a long time, but Gaster remembers how to deal with this sort of injury. He WAS a medical doctor before he became a scientist after all. With quick work, he removes the scalpel and wraps Undyne's eye up. It takes much coaxing to get her to stop screaming. The pain of the second red liquid dose and the eye stabbing on top of that is almost too much for the girl. But Gaster doesn't react too much. He remembers seeing a lot of stuff like this before… It's nothing new to him.
Three more hours later Undyne wakes up from unconsciousness. She isn't sure when she fell asleep.
"AH. HELLO. CAN YOU HEAR ME UNDYNE?" Undyne tries to open her eyes, and feels that her left one has stuff over it… it doesn't hurt? Didn't it hurt before?... She can't remember.
"Uh… yeah. Ah man I ache so bad… What happened? And why is my eye covered up?"
Gaster raises a brow and leans back a little. "YOU DON'T REMEMBER?" He asks a little confused. Undyne shakes her head. But even that hurts. It feels like an earthquake inside of her skull… Her knees hurt and her stomach feels like it's being eaten by acid…
"Nah. What I do remember is that I drank that stuff… and it was super gross. I hurt everywhere and then everything went black."
"VERY INTERESTING. MEMORY LOSS? SHORT TERM AT LEAST… PROBABLY DUE TO THE PAIN AND YOUR BRAIN SIMPLY COULDN'T HANDLE IT. PROCESS IT. VERY WELL… UNDYNE, THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT."
His tone isn't a happy one. Undyne thinks it sounds more neutral than anything, but the fact that he would need to say something important after she just learned that a bunch of crap happened and she can't remember scares her a bit.
"WHILE YOU WERE BLACKED OUT, IT SEEMS YOU TRIED TO GET UP WHILE I WAS AWAY. YOU SLIPPED AND FELL, TAKING THE TRAY AND TOOLS WITH YOU… YOU LANDED ON ONE OF THEM." He points to his eye and Undyne gulps… She fell on a tool? On her EYE? She's glad she can't remember what happened then…
"Uh… wow. Okay. That's pretty bad. So… what else?"
"IT'S GONE. I… HAD TO REMOVE IT. IT WAS BEYOND SAVING. AND IT WOULD HAVE JUST HURT YOU MORE IF I'D LEFT IT IN THE WAY IT WAS."
Undyne is quiet. She has to let this sink in. Her left eye is GONE. It's literally out of her head.
"Wow… Can I see it?"
"THE WOUND?"
"No, the eye you dummy." She doesn't appear to be joking though…
