"Frisk!" Alphys shouted as Frisk ran into the lab, gasping for breath as she tried to keep up. "What… Hah… What's the hurry?" Once she was in the lab herself, Alphys leaned against the wall to catch her breath. "I think I can skip my workout today," she remarked, still breathing heavily. Once she started breathing normally again, she looked back up at the human child, who seemed to be staring at something in her left hand. "Whatcha lookin' at?" She walked over and saw that the child was holding what appeared to be a worn dagger. "A knife?"

Frisk closed her eyes. "Does it frighten you that I have this?"

Alphys tilted her head. "Should it?"

"Just… Knowing what I could do with it."

Alphys smiled and shook her head. "Not one bit!"

Frisk opened her eyes, the red glint returning. "I could do a lot of damage with this. Your guard is down entirely. I could abuse your trust and take you out with a single move."

Alphys crossed her arms, still smiling. "Yeah, you could." She sighed and put a hand on Frisk's shoulder. "Look, the idea hasn't totally slipped my mind that you could POSSIBLY be dangerous to me. Do you scare me on occasion? Sure! Does your questionable past raise concerns? Of course it does." Frisk pulled away, but Alphys kept smiling. "But I trust you completely, Frisk," she said. "That's what friendship is. We're friends. Hell, at this point we're basically family." She stared off at nothing. "A small, chronically depressed family." Alphys frowned and spaced out for a moment before looking back at Frisk. "The point is that this weapon says nothing about the person wielding it. Just between you and me, I have a sword upstairs because I think swords are cool."

Frisk looked at the blade. She stared at her reflection before smiling and putting it down. "Thanks, Alphys. I'm glad you trust me. It's just… Some of the stuff I'm about to tell you is pretty heavy and… When you combine it with my spotty past—"

"Please, Frisk," Alphys interrupted. "If you were going to hurt me, you'd have done it already. I mean, come on, what, did you gain somebody's trust before killing them in that other timeline?" Alphys laughed, but stopped when she noticed Frisk wasn't laughing. "Jeez, kid…" She coughed and looked away. "A-anyway, I feel safe around you. Almost as much as I do around Undyne. I feel like… I feel like you'd do anything to help out a friend. I feel like if I was in trouble, you would have my back. I feel like… If anything ever happened to me… Or… If I did something, uh, regrettable, you'd… N-not that that's why I keep you around, I mean, I care about you a lot—"

"Alphys, I know what you mean, it's alright."

"I do have ONE question about the knife," Alphys continued. "Where'd you get it?"

"Remember when I went to go get the king's key?"

Frisk asked.

Alphys groaned. "Oh, God, Frisk, did you steal that?" She put her hands in her face. "Listen, you can't just go around grabbing every item you find on the floor. What do you think this is, an RPG?"

Frisk shook her head. "I didn't steal it. It belonged to me."

Alphys looked back up, eyes narrowed, frowning at the child in front of her. She would never admit this, but secretly Alphys was awaiting the day she could scold Frisk. She thought it'd complete the whole "guardian" feel of their relationship. Before she could say anything, however, she noticed that Frisk's pupils were red. "Go on…" Alphys said warily. She felt like her day, which consisted so far of breaking into her boss's house, watching her best friend get judged, stealing corpses, dedicating a human cemetery in Snowdin, and finally getting a kiss from Undyne (platonic as, she admitted to herself, it probably was) was somehow about to get even more interesting.

Frisk blinked and her eyes returned to normal. "Okay. So. When a being dies, their soul eventually shatters, correct?"

"Correct. Monsters faster than humans."

"And how quickly said soul disappears after shattering depends on how much determination the recently deceased possessed, right?"

"That's the theory," Alphys sighed. "According to Doctor Gaster's notes on the topic, the longest recorded time is about two hours."

"So imagine, if you will, a soul that has long since shattered," Frisk began, "but never faded away."

Alphys blinked. "Impossible, but go on."

Frisk continued. "Imagine that this soul found, say, a body to piggyback on. Imagine that the remainder of this soul latched onto the nearest living thing and, essentially, possessed it."

Alphys raised an eyebrow. "I don't understand."

Frisk sighed. "This is going to be so hard to explain…"

Undyne jolted awake. Another nightmare. Once again, she dreamt about that make-believe impossible scenario where Frisk tried to hurt her and others. Undyne couldn't understand why she was having these nightmares. She knew, without a doubt, that Frisk was basically incapable of harming others. Other than these dreams, the idea never even crossed Undyne's mind.

So why have I been having this dream so much? she asked herself. Maybe it was the bed she was sleeping on. That is, not a bed at all. Papyrus' couch wasn't exactly the most comfortable thing to be sleeping on, so she thought that maybe the discomfort was causing… uncomfortable dreams? Ok, that's reaching, she admitted. Still, though, she did think it would be best to find a new place to stay, soon. I think I'm overstaying my welcome, she thought. Plus, being around Sans so much was starting to get really awkward.

That train of thought led her to another conclusion. She remembered what Sans had told her in the Judgement Hall. She was… Remembering. Remembering what? Those were nightmares. Not memories. Undyne was pretty sure she'd remember dying. That didn't seem like the sort of thing she'd forget.

Besides, the dream got things wrong. Frisk was right-handed in the dream, but she's left handed in reality. Although, when Frisk does the weird red-eye thing, she looks eerily similar to dream Frisk… Undyne chalked that bit up to her mind using the things that made her uncomfortable to cook up bad dreams.

She began to also think about Alphys' bathroom. Why had the mere sight of the bathroom door given her chills before? She never saw what was behind it, but that alone shouldn't have been enough to unnerve her.

The other day, she talked about the dream with Papyrus, who, like her, found the circumstances to be completely ridiculous.

"That's completely ridiculous!" Papyrus said as he stirred the spaghetti. "Why would the human want to fight YOU? That's basically suicidal!"

"I know, right?!" Undyne yelled. "It's like, I'm so tough and scary, right? Nobody WANTS to fight me. And Frisk is a HUGE WEENIE! So why am I having dreams where Frisk wants to fight me?! IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!" She groaned in frustration. "I bet fighting Frisk would be SO COOL, but she's all," Undyne began to mock a little girl's voice, which was much higher pitched than Frisk's actual voice, "'No, I'm a pacifist. I don't fight people, blah blah blah, monsters are super fragile and I might accidentally kill you.' Like, DON'T BE SUCH A BABY!"

Papyrus scratched his chin. "Hmmmm. Perhaps you're self-conscious about letting yourself go."

There was a beat of silence between them.

"What do you mean by that, Papyrus?" Undyne asked, glaring at him.

Papyrus didn't seem to notice. "Sans!" he shouted to his brother, who was sitting at the kitchen table, reading a newspaper he found at the dump. If the headline was any indication, 1963 was not a good year for humans. "What do you think the significance of Undyne's dreams are?"

Sans looked up from his newspaper. "I dunno, bro. Something seems fishy about it, though."

That was the last time Undyne spoke to Sans, until earlier today, that is. She focused back on the judgement. "Remembering," she pondered to herself. "Remembering what?!" she asked, frustrated.

Frisk sighed in frustration. "Come on, Alphys," she said, pinching her nose bridge. The human stood in front of a chalkboard, which was covered in a diagram that, she thought, was fairly simple.

"I'm sorry, I just don't get it," Alphys said. "Okay, so, Asgore's dead kids in the 60s, I got that part. The human's soul shattered." She glanced at the board. "Right?"

"Yes, very good."

"So then how does it possess someone?"

"With a fragment."

Alphys blinked. "So then what happens to the other pieces?"

"I don't know, does it matter?"

"Sort of? If a being has only part of a soul it's not complete."

Frisk smacked her forehead. She took in a deep breath to calm herself down. Chara's influence on her really was making her more irritable. "Yes, that's the point I'm trying to get across."

"So we have just a pissed off incomplete ghost walking around."

"No, the pissed off incomplete ghost isn't walking around, it's tied to a host."

"Frisk, none of this makes any sense," Alphys said, seemingly just as frustrated. "There are so many holes."

"I'M CARRYING A SECOND CONSCIOUSNESS!" Frisk shouted finally. "God."

Alphys blinked. "Frisk, why didn't you just say that in the first place?"

Frisk sighed. "So this other soul's name is Chara, and-"

"And Chara's the one speaking right now," Alphys interrupted. Chara gasped.

"Whoa."

Alphys simply nodded. "I might not have known exactly what was going on, but I had a few guesses." She pushed in her glasses and walked over to Chara. "You have a few tells. Your posture, your tone," she glanced at Chara's idle hands. "...your dominant hand…" Alphys slowly thought about this revelation. Something concerning came to her mind. "Does Undyne know about this?"

Frisk regained control and shook her head. "No," she said. She then thought for a moment about what Undyne said the night she told Frisk about her nightmares. "Not entirely," she added.

Alphys narrowed her eyes. "She was confused about which hand you use to write this morning." She glanced over at the doorway leading into the kitchen. "I'm going to brew a pot of coffee. I think we're going to be up a while. Keep talking," she said as she and Frisk walked into the kitchen. Alphys began making preparations while Frisk continued.

"She might know something about the resets."

Alphys froze, dropping the coffee pot on the floor. It shattered on impact. She slowly turned towards Frisk, wide-eyed. "What?" she asked for clarification.

"I think Undyne can remember the resets," Frisk clarified. That was clearly not what Alphys wanted to hear.

"What do you MEAN," Alphys began, desperately walking towards Frisk, "Undyne can remember the resets?!" Alphys glanced around frantically, as if searching the room for answers. "I can't even remember the resets and I KNOW about them!"

Undyne paced the room. Remembering… what? This was driving her nuts. Groaning, she grabbed her coat and put on her boots. She needed to go for a walk or she was going to go insane. Before leaving, she left a note in case Papyrus wondered where she had gone:

Papyrus,

Everything is weird right now. Went for a walk. Hope my screaming night terrors didn't wake you.

Undyne

P.S. If I die on my walk please rate the cause of death by coolness on a 1-10 scale.

Undyne stepped outside and was greeted by the bitter cold. Not wanting to stand in the cold for much longer, she turned in the direction of Waterfall. Before reaching the end of Snowdin, however, she spotted a speck of gold in the white snow.

"...remember… Why can't I remember?" a small voice asked itself. Curious, Undyne approached it. "I should be able to… Why can't I… What did Chara do?" Undyne soon found herself in front of a small flower monster that she'd never seen before, which was hunched over and muttering to itself.

"Uh, heya," Undyne greeted. Startled, the little flower turned around and looked up at her. It looked frustrated. "You alright, little buddy?"

The flower shook its head. "I'm trying to remember… Something. Something I definitely should be remembering, but I CAN'T. I have such a great memory normally, and now…" the flower trailed off.

Undyne shrugged. "Eh. I'm having memory problems too. Namely, I'm remembering things that didn't happen." Undyne crossed her arms and thought about it for a second. "Have we met?" she asked.

The flower glanced around. "I don't remember," he said. "I… Guess not?"

Undyne smiled. "Name's Undyne! Nice to meet ya!"

The flower swallowed. "I'm Flowey. Flowey the Flower." Flowey looked curiously up at Undyne. "You said you're remembering things that didn't happen?"

"Yeah. Been having weird dreams about all my friends dying. They feel like something I've seen before, but that's impossible." Undyne scratched the back of her neck. "You know. Because they're not dead."

Flowey's eyes widened. Can she… No, that's impossible, he thought to himself. There was no way she could remember the resets. If HE couldn't remember anymore, nobody could.

...right?

Suddenly, Undyne gasped. "Hey! I know! We're both having memory problems!" she exclaimed. "Let's go see my really smart friend! I bet she knows lots about this!" Undyne started off before realizing her new friend was rooted to the ground. "Uh, can you move, or…?"

Flowey blinked. "Who's your friend?" Suddenly, he shouted and recoiled as a spear dug itself into the ground near him. Undyne dug the flower out and brought him up to her shoulder, where she let him rest. He glared at her, annoyed, although despite his annoyance he reluctantly wrapped his roots loosely around her bicep.

Undyne grinned. "Why, only the ROYAL SCIENTIST! She's a good friend of mine!"

Flowey rolled his eyes. "Oh, the Royal Scien- R- ROYAL SCIENTIST?!" he exclaimed, surprised. "No, no, no no no no. No." He shook his head angrily. "We are NOT going to go see her."

"Why not?"

"Because! She…" Flowey stopped himself. He couldn't just straight-out tell her his origin story, now could he? "Will she even be awake? It's pretty late."

"Ah, she's got a kid now. Sort of. It's complicated." Undyne began walking in the direction of the River Person. "Kids, like, cry a lot, right? So she's probably already awake from that."

"Big kids don't cry," Flowey said coldly. Undyne glanced at him. "Uh, I mean, babies cry."

Undyne grinned. "Hah! They sure do!" As they neared the intersection, she frowned and slowed down. "Uh, but, you know, crying doesn't make you a BABY," she reasoned. "Sadness is just another emotion people use to express themselves!"

"Oh, that must be nice."

Undyne stopped. "What?"

Flowey's eyes widened. He slipped up again! "I… don't get sad!" he covered, grinning. "I'm just happy-go-lucky, all day, every day, and GOLLY, is it exhausting!"

Undyne smiled and nodded. "You're really lucky, then! I bet you make a lot of your friends smile, too!"

Flowey frowned. Right. Friends.

Undyne, flower in tow, boarded the boat, which began drifting in the direction of Hotland. The river person began humming their usual song.

"Tra la la. Beware of the man who speaks in hands."

Alphys paced the room. "Oh, this is bad, Frisk."

"It's not THAT bad."

"No, Chara, this is REALLY bad!" Alphys countered, not even batting an eyelash at the other soul taking control. "Okay. Okay. Calm down Alphys, we'll get through this. Alright! Let's see! How long can we feasibly keep the concept of time travel from entering Undyne's mind?"

"Alphys," Frisk said. Alphys looked over. This was the real Frisk speaking. She had a look of compassion in her eyes that the other soul lacked. "It's going to be alright." Frisk walked over to Alphys and hugged her. "I promise. We'll be fine." She pulled away to look at the lizard monster. "Undyne doesn't know anything yet. It's all just residual stuff."

Alphys frowned. "How do you KNOW it's all just residual, Frisk?"

Frisk smiled. "Because I didn't say anything just now."

Alphys blinked. "Excuse me?"

Frisk walked back towards the counter. "I loaded my save a few minutes ago. This time around, I stayed completely silent after I hugged you." She turned towards Alphys and winked. "Your brain filled in the gaps."

Alphys narrowed her eyes. "Nice try, Frisk, but…" She glanced out the door. She dashed out, followed by a smiling Frisk, sat at her computer in the next room, and pulled up the kitchen's security footage.

"Alphys," Frisk said. Alphys looked over. This was the real Frisk speaking. She had a look of compassion in her eyes that the other soul lacked. "It's going to be alright." Frisk walked over to Alphys and hugged her. No words were said between the two for several seconds. Frisk pulled away to look at the lizard monster, and was silent once again.

Alphys frowned. "How do you KNOW it's all just residual, Frisk?"

Frisk smiled. "Because I didn't say anything just now."

Alphys gasped. Frisk approached her.

"Anyone can remember a reset," she said. "At least, they can remember very minute details." She shrugged. "Undyne is just remembering a little more. That's all."

"How-"

"Timey-whimey."

Alphys let out a deep breath and sank into her chair, relaxing.

"Besides," Frisk began, "we agreed we'd tell her about the resets eventually."

Alphys sighed. "I know, Frisk. I know. I just… Don't think the time is right."

Undyne stopped. She was just outside the lab.

"Why are we stopping?" Flowey asked.

Undyne seemed disoriented. She looked around before glancing at the spot she was standing. "We were a few steps ahead."

"What?"

Undyne frowned, then shook her head. "It's nothing. I swear we just went backwards."

Flowey rolled his eyes. "You're probably just imagining things." He briefly considered the idea that Chara loaded a save, but to only load one a few seconds before was ridiculous. Undyne was definitely just miscounting her steps.

The fish monster shrugged. "I guess." She continued towards the lab. The automatic door opened for her and she stepped in. Just as she suspected, Alphys and Frisk were both awake. They were apparently in the middle of a conversation.

"...tell her about the resets eventually."

"I know, Frisk. I know. I just… Don't think the time is right."

Undyne didn't really pay much attention to what they were saying, but Flowey did. He narrowed his eyes and glared in the human's direction. What is your game, Chara?

"Heya, guys!" Undyne shouted, grinning at her two best friends. Alphys gasped and turned around, letting out a startled yelp as she saw Undyne.

"U-Undyne! What, uh…" her eyes wandered over to the flower on Undyne's shoulder. "Uh- uh, you- UM-"

Frisk stepped forward and saw what was going on. Glaring, she stepped slightly—and defensively—in front of Alphys, who was still stammering like a fool. Flowey rolled his eyes and gestured up at Undyne. Frisk looked back up at Undyne, who seemed confused by the situation.

"Uh, is this a bad time?" she asked.

Frisk stared at Undyne, then at Flowey, then at Undyne again. Suddenly, Alphys' phone rang. Flowey cringed at the ringtone; it seemed to be a MIDI version of the Mew Mew Kissy Cutie theme song, "Neko no sekkusu wa mondai o kaiketsu suru."

"AH! I-I'll get that!" She looked at the caller ID and frowned. "Nevermind, I'm not getting that."

"Who is it?" asked Undyne.

"Asgore," Alphys said nonchalantly. "I figured we probably have more important things to deal with right now, and also we have a human right here, so Asgore will have to wait." The phone continued ringing.

Frisk dropped her defensive stance and walked closer to Undyne. "What brings you here?" she asked, still cautiously staring up Flowey.

Undyne didn't seem to notice. "Well, my new pal and I have a problem that we think Alphys might be able to help us with!"

"What problem?" Frisk asked.

Undyne grinned. "You killed me!"

Frisk gasped and stepped backwards. Alphys nearly fainted. "How the hell-" Frisk began.

Undyne interrupted. "Well, in a dream, I mean," she laughed. "Obviously you didn't do that for REAL, or else I wouldn't be here!" Frisk sighed and pinched her nose bridge. "But the dreams feel really real," Undyne continued, "and other weird stuff is going on too. It's like, a memory, or something. I'm remembering stuff that never happened."

Frisk cast a sideways glance towards Alphys, who had moved in closer. She was still looking cautiously at Flowey, something that caught Frisk's attention. Frisk glanced at Flowey, then back at Alphys.

"Do you two know each other?" she asked finally. She glanced back over at Flowey, who was glaring in Alphys' direction.

"No," the flower responded flatly. "I've never met this monster before in my life." The word "monster", although in this context referring to a literal monster, was given a slight emphasis that Frisk couldn't help but notice. Flowey's eyes narrowed slightly. "Perhaps we should get to know each other a little better." Frisk could sense a slight air of hostility from the tone in his voice. She also had the slightest feeling that Flowey and Alphys had, in fact, met before.

Alphys swallowed and looked away. "U-uh, I'm Alphys. The Royal Scientist."

"Flowey. The flower," Flowey responded, still glaring. "Pleased to 'meet' you, Alphys. Golly, Royal Scientist, huh?" He leaned forward. "What do you do?" he asked in quite possibly the most falsely inquisitive voice Frisk had ever heard.

Undyne was, apparently, missing the subtext of the conversation. "Oh, she does all kinds of things! She builds robots, and… Monitors the Underground, and… Huh." Undyne scratched her head. "Other stuff, I guess. It mostly has to do with numbers, I think, I'm not really that good at numbers, so I don't know what most of it is."

"How interesting," the flower said. From the tone of voice he was using, he appeared to have been holding back genuine anger. "I suppose you must know a lot about… DETERMINATION," Flowey teased. "Say, Alphys. I've always wondered. What happens if you give determination to an inanimate object?"

Alphys tugged at her collar. "Uh, nothing?"

"Nothing, huh? What if a monster's dust was spread on said inanimate object? What happens then?"

Alphys shrunk a little. "Oh, lord," she muttered. This conversation left her feeling a little awkward, to say the least.

Oh! Chara exclaimed. It appeared he'd just figured something out, but Frisk wasn't really concerned with that right now. She was presently concerned with defusing the situation.

"So, Undyne," Frisk began, attempting to deflect everyone's attention to a different conflict entirely. "You said you're remembering things that never happened. Care to… Care to elaborate?" she asked.

Undyne nodded. "Alright, so picture this." Frisk really didn't have to. "The Underground is silent. Totally empty. Not a soul around. I can't find Papyrus, I can't find any of the dogs. Nobody." Frisk shuddered. "Turns out, there's some crazy psycho human running around killing everyone, and like, you know, that in and of itself isn't a huge deal, I have dreams all the time where I gotta save the entire Underground from public enemy number one. But this one feels more real. Like I was actually there." Frisk looked away.

"Anyway, I follow this human through Waterfall, and let me tell you, this human's a real scumbag. So finally, I see them try and hurt this monster kid." Undyne narrowed her eye. "It's always… That one kid who followed you around when you went through Waterfall. Remember that kid?" Frisk nodded. "So I'm like, 'wow, that's not cool'. So like a HERO, I jump in front of him and take the blow. And it hurts. Like, it REALLY hurts." Undyne grasped her stomach, as if she was remembering the pain itself. "I don't think I've ever felt pain in a dream like I have in this one. It was bad. So I look up, and I see…" she frowned. "The human is you. And, somehow, I gather the determination to keep going. And then we fight." Undyne's eyelid lowered, as if the thought genuinely upset her. "And the only question running through my mind is, 'why'? Why is it like this? Why did you… Do this?" Frisk sighed. "That's where things sort of branch off. Sometimes, I… win. But we lose your soul. And I have to fix the Underground. I have to console families. I have to grieve on my own. I have to figure out, what the hell am I going to do with the empty town you left behind? And I talk to Alphys about it. And she doesn't know what to do either. ...sometimes, you win. At the end of the dream though, it seems like… Nobody wins."

"Believe me, nobody won that fight," Frisk muttered to herself.

"What was that?" Undyne asked Frisk to repeat herself.

"Nothing. Continue."

"Anyway, I know it shouldn't bug me this much but… It does." Undyne closed her eye and sighed. "It bugs me a lot."

Frisk looked away again, her face grim. Ok, she thought. So Undyne remembers a lot more than I thought.

In this moment, Frisk realized she was screwed.

Alphys glanced at Flowey again. "W-what sort of problems are you having?"

Flowey looked unfazed by the story Undyne just told. "I'm having basically the opposite problem. I can't remember any rese- I can't remember anything," he quickly corrected himself.

Alphys raised an eyebrow. Frisk—no, Chara, Alphys could tell the difference now—tugged at Alphys' sleeve and gestured to the other side of the room.

"Just one second," Alphys said before convening on the other end with Chara. "What?"

"As- The flower can remember resets," Chara whispered, arms crossed. "At least, I thought so, anyway. Sounds like he can't now."

Alphys' eyes darted back to Undyne and Flowey. She slowly returned her gaze to Chara. "So Undyne can remember resets, and Flowey can't. But it used to be the other way around." She frowned. "Do you think they're connected?"

"Again, Undyne can't fully remember. It's all residual. Flowey knew when a reset was coming."

Alphys groaned and pinched her nose bridge. "I'm not qualified for this. This isn't what I signed up for." She sighed. "Okay. Deep breaths. You can do this." Alphys looked at Chara with a determined look on her face. "So, what do we do?"

Chara frowned. "You created Flowey, didn't you?"

Alphys started stammering. "I-I didn't- it was- look, the king needed a vessel for- It's just a soulless husk, you know?"

Chara's tone suddenly became much more hostile. "That soulless husk used to be my brother."

Alphys gasped. "O-oh my god, that's the king's son." She looked over at Flowey, horrified. "I… I… Told you I can do necromancy!"

"Alphys!"

Alphys closed her eyes. "I know, I screwed up. Okay? What do you want? I was 17. Gaster had just died, Sans had left the lab, I was literally BY MYSELF in this position that I didn't even WANT, and because I'm an IDIOT, I thought, hey, let's inject this determination stuff into a flower, it'll be a nice surprise for the King! I didn't know his son's dust was spread all over the flower garden!"

"Asriel—and so help me god, Alphys, you will treat that name with respect—was a fucking SAINT and he does NOT deserve to be stuck in that flower!"

Chara, you need to calm down.

While Alphys and the human were arguing, Undyne glanced around the room. "Say, Flowey, you probably wanna find somewhere comfy to be set down, huh?"

Flowey was too busy paying attention to the argument in complete bewilderment. "I… Can you hear what they're saying? I can't make out their whispers."

Undyne snapped her fingers. "I know!" she exclaimed. "I wonder where Al keeps her gardening tools."

"Get me a little closer, I wanna know what they're saying."

Undyne found a rather large coffee mug on the desk. She inspected it and saw no stains or leftovers. "Eh, good enough." Suddenly, and without warning, she dumped Flowey into the mug, much to his annoyance. She then found a bag of fertilizer near the vegetable garden Alphys and the human had been growing and dumped a bunch of it in.

Flowey cringed. "Ugh, what's in this stuff?" he asked, disgusted by the horrible stench.

Undyne glanced at the list of nutrients found in the bag. "Ew, you probably don't want me to tell you," she said, sticking her tongue out as she read off some of the things found in a bag of fertilizer.

Flowey rolled his eyes. "Figures." He returned his attention to Chara and Alphys, who appeared to be arguing about… Something. If only he could hear what they were saying.

"I can't believe you're being so flippant about this!" Chara exclaimed, fuming. He wasn't sure where this anger came from; he wasn't this angry a few moments ago. She disrespected Asriel, and that just set him off.

But hadn't he disrespected Asriel, so long ago?

Alphys groaned. "Chara, I feel bad about it. I do! But we can't do anything, so what's the point in-?"

"We can TRY!" Chara said angrily.

Alphys rolled her eyes. "You didn't seem to care this much about him when you were alive."

Chara's eyes widened. "What did you just say to me?"

Chara.

Alphys suddenly realized how mean that was. "O-oh, God, Chara. I-I'm so-" she began, before Chara cut her off.

"You don't know SHIT about me."

Chara, stop.

"You don't know anything about what happened all those years ago," Chara continued. "You don't know the relationship I had with him. You don't know the BOND we shared. You don't even know how we died!"

Enough.

"You killed yourself and got him killed!" Alphys retorted. Chara stepped back, clearly upset. "Aw, jeez, there I go again," Alphys berated herself.

"How do you know about that?" Chara asked.

"It's not-"

"How the fuck do you know about that?"

Alphys groaned again. "I found tapes, okay! Tapes that showed me a really messed up side of you! You blame me for Asriel's current state, but… But it's your fault he's like this!" Alphys looked over at Flowey for a moment before returning her attention to Chara. She knew that she shouldn't be deflecting blame, but she didn't know what else to say. "If the king saw those tapes…"

"Where are these tapes?"

"Nowhere-"

Chara glanced at the bathroom door. "You're hiding them in there, aren't you?" he accused.

"Chara-"

"What else goes on behind that door?" he asked, hostility having taken total control of his tone. He began to march towards the bathroom door.

Chara.

"Chara, it's not important," Alphys said desperately. She walked towards him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Now I think we need to focus on the conflict at hand and-"

Chara turned around, drew his knife, and pressed it against Alphys' neck. "Don't fucking touch me." Alphys stepped back, a mark being left where he'd been holding the knife.

Chara, PUT THAT DOWN.

"W-what are you going to do with that?" Alphys asked, for the first time ever feeling that her life was in danger with the human.

"Shut up. And don't make assumptions about my life."

It was at this point that the argument caught Undyne's attention. She saw the human threatening Alphys with a deadly weapon. For a second, she couldn't process it. Flowey just stared, bewildered. Undyne stepped forward and yelled. "Frisk! The hell's going on?!" The human turned to face Undyne; it was a face she recognized. It was the face from her nightmare.

Concerned for the well-being of both Alphys and the human, Undyne summoned a spear. "Hey, kid, listen, whatever's going on… Let's just calm down and talk about this, okay?" she tried to reason. The human simply scowled and pocketed the knife. They walked over to the desk and grabbed Flowey, before walking towards the exit.

"Get your hands off of me, you psycho!" Flowey yelled.

Chara yelled over his shoulder. "I'm going for a walk. Don't bother looking for me, I'll come back when I come back." He stopped at the door. "If you send any royal guards after me, you'll be sending them to their deaths." He stepped out, leaving Undyne and a heavily shaken Alphys alone.

Undyne turned to Alphys and demanded answers. "What the hell just happened?!" she asked, panicked at the sudden mood whiplash.

Alphys stared at the exit for a moment. "I messed up," she admitted. I was bound to ruin everything eventually, she thought glumly. It's what I'm best at.