Judging by her reaction, he was pretty sure that wasn't what she was hoping to hear from him.
"The truth...? But if I tell her that, she'll hate me. Isn't it better this way? To live a lie where both people are happy... or a truth where neither of us are?" Frisk shook his head.
"No one can truly be happy living as something they aren't." She looked at the ground.
"They say 'be yourself' but I don't really like who 'myself' is. I'd rather just be whatever makes others like me." Oh man... she really is far gone on this... He'd known someone in the same hospital that he'd been in who had been the same way. He'd seen how she'd struggled in front of doctors and nurses... even her own family to be so chipper... but he'd gotten to know her because she was like him. She was even younger too, just a teenager really, and he'd heard her quiet sobbing in the evenings when she thought he was asleep... had seen the look in her eyes when she thought no one was looking. Right up until the day she had died, she had played a lie... and he had never seen someone look ever so tired as she had the very last day he'd seen her...
"So, you're never going to tell them the truth huh?"
"Why bother? I'm not like you Frisk, I don't have the strength of will you do. You don't even have family... how have you hung on for so long?"
"What else am I to do? I am what I am. Nothing changes that."
"I wish I had your optimism. I hope that, for your sake... someone finds a cure. The world needs people like you." He shook the memory away, trying to focus on Alphys. She gave him an uncertain smile.
"No. It's not right to. I can understand how hard it is to be yourself. To be who... what you are, but you have friends here who care about you. Others who want to see you happy, but it's not easy to see that is it? Still, you have been surrounded by those who care about you since you were born. I'll let you in on something I have only told one other monster. I'm an orphan." Her eyes widened at that.
"I was found on the steps of a local orphanage when was just a couple years old. Whoever my parents were, they either couldn't take care of me or couldn't stand the sight of me. Whatever their reason, I didn't know the love of a family. I grew up with six other children, none of who got close to me when it became obvious that I wasn't like them. That I was... different. Children, can be the most accepting at times... but they can also be the most cruelest of beings. I don't know what sort of life you've lived, but I believe that you have to take chances where you can. Take risks for the right reason and love... well, it's probably one of the biggest risks out there. It's also one of the most rewarding." There was a moment of silence before she nodded.
"You're right. Every day... I'm scared... Scared of what will happen if others learn the truth on their own. They'll all get hurt because of me... But how can I tell UNDYNE the tr... truth? I d-don't have the confidence... I'm going to mess it up! How can I practice?!"
"Let's role play it. You can practice with me."
"R... role play? ... That actually sounds kind of fun!" Guess they don't have role playing games down here...
"Ok, which one of us will be Undyne?"
"I'll be Undyne."
"Oh. Right. Obviously." He just smiled at her. She cleared her throat.
"H-hi Undyne... H-how are you doing today?"
"I'm fine."
"Ha! Ha! Glad to hear it! ... Uh, so I'd like to, um, to talk to you about something."
"What is it Alphys?"
"Um... you see... I... I... I..." Her next words were just blurted out.
"I h-haven't been exactly truthful w-w-with you..." Frisk waited patiently for her to continue, after all this was the first time and didn't practice make perfect?
"Y... you see, I... I... Oh, forget it! Undyne! I... I want to tell you how I feel!" Um, okay... this is faster than I thought she'd take it...
"Y-you're so brave... a-and s-strong... a-and nice... Y-you always listen to me when I talk about n-n-nerdy stuff... Y-you always d-d-do your best to m-make me f-f-feel special... L-like t-telling me that y-you'll beat up anyone that g-gets in my way..." She began shaking.
"UNDYNE! I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANY LONGER!" Why was she shouting now? Oh dear... if Undyne was still in the area looking for Alphys... well, maybe this was for the best...
"I'M MADLY IN LOVE WITH YOU! HOLD ME, UNDYNE! HOLD ME!" Just as Frisk had thought would happen, moments later Undyne appeared with a rather shocked look on her face.
"WHAT did you just say?" Alphys' euphorium suddenly seemed to dissolve into nervousness as she took a step back.
"U... Undyne! I... was... just..." Undyne glanced from her to him and then back again.
"Hey, woah, wait a second! Your outfit's really cute! What's' the occasion?" Before Alphys could think up an answer, whether it was going to be the truth or another lie, it seemed to suddenly click for the royal guard.
"Wait a second. Are you two... on a date?"
"UHHH, YES!" Frisk hadn't expected her to admit that, but maybe she was tired of lying...
"I mean, UHHH NO! I mean, we were, but I mean, actually we were only romantically role playing as you!"
"WHAT?" Oh Alphys... that was the wrong thing to say... oh dear. Frisk kept quiet though and watched the scene before him play out. It was a little strange, honestly, seeing Undyne in a leather jacket, jeans, boots and a white t-shirt instead of the armor.
"I MEAN! I mean... Undyne... I... I've been lying to you." So this was it... Alphys was finally going to clear her conscious.
"WHAT? ABOUT WHAT?"
"About... well... Everything!" She moved forward suddenly, closing the distance as if she seemed to suddenly have gathered her courage.
"I told you that seaweed was like... scientifically important... Really, I just... I just use it to make ice cream!" She took another step forward, her words coming faster now.
"And those human history books I kept reading... Those are just dorky comic books!" Another step forward.
"And the history movies... those... Those are just, uh, anime." Another step brought her right next to Undyne.
"And that time I told you I was busy with work on the phone... I was just eating frozen yogurt in my pajamas! That time I -"
"Alphys." She stopped talking, looking at her feet now.
"I... I just wanted to impress you! I just wanted you to think I was smart and cool. That I wasn't some... nerdy loser."
"Alphys." Undyne did something Frisk never would have expected, she was consoling Alphys and had even knelt down to her level to do so.
"Undyne, I... I really think you're neat OK... "
"Alphys, ." Suddenly she stood up, picking Alphys up with her; she then suddenly tossed her into the trashcan that Alphys had been hiding behind earlier.
"Alphys! I... think you're neat too, I guess." This was a little more like the Undyne he remembered.
"But, you've got to realize... Most of what you said doesn't really matter to me. I don't care if you're watching cartoons or reading history books. To me, ALL of that stuff is just NERDY CRAP!" Frisk frowned, well... at least she was being honest right?
"What I like about you is that you're PASSIONATE! You're ANALYTICAL! It doesn't matter what it is! YOU CARE ABOUT IT! ONE HUNDRED PERCENT! AT MAXIMUM POWER!... so, you don't have to lie to me. I don't want you to have to lie to anyone anymore." Frisk smiled a little at that.
"Alphys... I want to help you become happy with who you are! And I know just the training you need to do that!" Alphys peered from inside the trashcan.
"Undyne... You... Y-you're gonna train me...?"
"Pffft, what? ME?" It was then that Frisk noticed Papyrus straighten from behind a small pile. How long had he been there? He was dressed in a sweatband and his usual battle armor said "jogboy" for some reason.
"Nah, I'm gonna get Papyrus to do it."
"GET THOSE BONES SHAKIN'!" He said as he lept over a pile of garbage. Frisk just watched in amusement.
"IT'S TIME TO JOG ONE HUNDRED LAPS. HOOTING ABOUT HOW GREAT WE ARE!" A hundred?! Was he serious?!
"Ready? I'm about to start the timer!" Apparently... Frisk was just glad it wasn't him doing those laps.
"U-undyne... I'll do my best...!" Frisk felt a little bad for her, but maybe this would help her; it might seem odd but maybe this was exactly what she needed. The two ran off, leaving him with Undyne who turned to him with a shocked expression. As if what Alphys had told her finally sunk in.
"OH MY GOD! She was kidding, right!? Those cartoons... Those comics... Those are still REAL, right? ANIME'S REAL, RIGHT!?" Her expression looked a little crazed and Frisk wasn't sure what to say for a moment, should he continue the lie and let her believe that until she found out herself on the surface or should he tell the truth? Honestly, her expression was scaring him a bit... He knew it wasn't real of course, but... After a moment he nodded, after all there WAS a lot of realistic things IN anime, it just wasn't all real...
"Well, animie is real some-"
"HA HA HA! I KNEW IT! GIGANTIC SWORDS! MAGICAL PRINCESSES!" Oh dear... no, those things weren't real...
"HERE I COME!" After that there was a moment of silence. Well, he had tried to tell her that only some of it was real but she'd cut him off. Guess she wanted to think it all was real... well, she'd find out the truth herself about how real or unreal it was someday.
"Uhh, thanks for taking care of Alphys. I didn't get to say what I wanted to, but... Things seem like they're going to get better for her. Well, I gotta go catch up to them! Later!" She ran off before Frisk could say anything else. Well, now what? There wasn't going to be any talking with Alphys as he'd planned earlier. He noticed he was back where he'd landed when Undyne had cut the bridge out from under him; he'd spotted the remains of it in one garbage pile off to the side and the bed of golden flowers were nearby. How DID those things grow in the Underground without sunlight anyway? He shook his head and headed back towards Napstablook's home. Maybe the ghost might reveal something more; he'd at least be company while Frisk's clothes were drying. He was wading through the water hall where he'd fought with the Mad Dummy when his phone rang, he picked it up, wondering who it could be.
"If it isn't my good friend who trusts me. This is Papyrus, your also mutual friend." What a way to answer a phone! It was obviously Papyrus, only he would say something like that and it was easy to recognize his voice now.
"Hey Paps, what's up?"
"Alphys and I finished our training early." I hope she didn't collapse or anything...
"Very early. So I sent her home. Very home. Uh... now I feel strongly and for no apparent reason... You should also go... there." Why did that sound suspicious coming from him?
"To her. Lab... house. I have only good feelings about this. Goodbye." Click. Well that was odd... but okay... guess I'm heading to Hotland next, that will surely dry my clothes. He headed off to the section where he found the River Person waiting as expected.
"Tra la la. Care for a ride?" They asked when he approached.
"Yes, please. To Hotland."
"Then we're off." Frisk sat back in the boat as it headed off through the river, he'd no idea how it was steered but it didn't really matter much. Soon enough they were there.
"Come again soon. Tra la la."
"Thanks." He said as he disembarked and headed up; he could feel the heat of Hotland already. In the next room was the "save point" he remembered and Alphy's lab was nearby. The guards were gone, of course, from their post that led straight to the Core. He touched the "save point." It wasn't that he thought he needed it, but it didn't hurt in case something went wrong. The lab doors opened as they had the first time he'd come, but the lights were on; he didn't see her but he did see that she still hadn't fixed that hole in her wall where Mettaton had burst through. As he continued forward he saw a note on the floor in front of the bathroom door. He moved over to it and picked it up; her handwriting was a bit hard to read but he did his best to:
Hey,
Thanks for your help back there. You guys... Your support really means a lot to me. But... as difficult as this is to say this... You guys alone can't magically make my own problems go away. I want to be a better monster. I don't want to be afraid anymore. And for that to happen, I have to be able to face my own mistakes. I'm going to start doing that now. I want to be clear. This isn't anyone else's problem but mine. But if you don't ever hear from me again... If you want to know "the truth" ... enter the door to the north of this note. You all at least deserve to know what I did.
The letter ended there, it wasn't even signed but Frisk had a good idea that Alphys had written this. Alphys... He thought and didn't hesitate to go into the room before the note, that had been the "bathroom" and now clearly wasn't one as he stepped inside to find it was an elevator. What had she meant by that? By what she'd done? Frisk thought about that as the elevator began its descent but suddenly things didn't go as planned; the elevator began shaking and a red light filled the room as an automatic voice rang out calmly:
Warning! Warning! Elevator losing power! EM tether stability lost! Altitude dropping!
Wait... em?! Emergency tether?! Oh crap! It was all he had time to think before everything went white then black. There was a loud crash, he could only assume that was the elevator hitting the bottom with him in it... and yet, it remained intact; nothing had happened to the elevator itself. Frisk wasn't sure if he was relieved or not when the doors slid open. He picked himself up and moved towards the dim light. It wasn't very bright wherever it was that this elevator had brought him. He found himself in a hallway of sorts, the walls and tiles underfoot were this teal color... though whether the fading shades of teal were intentional or not he wasn't sure. With nowhere else to go, Frisk moved forward, he heard the elevator doors shut. Well, no where to go now for sure but forward as he was pretty sure the elevator was in no working condition for the moment. Maybe there was some way down here to restore the power? He saw a panel on the wall light up to his left, curious, he went over to it.
Entry Number 1
This is it...
Time to do what the King has asked me to do.
I will create the power to free us all.
I will unleash the power of the SOUL.
Why did that sound sort of... ominous? Frisk shook away the notion and walked on, he saw another. Had Alphys made these?
Entry Number 2
The barrier is locked by SOUL power...
Unfortunately, this power cannot be recreated artificially.
SOUL power can only be derived from what was once living.
So, to create more, we will have to use what we have now...
The SOULS of monsters.
That didn't sound any better than the entry before it. Frisk moved on to the third, feeling a little bit unnerved now. Hadn't the legends said that monster souls were unequal to human souls? So what exactly was she trying to do?
Entry Number 3
But extracting a SOUL from a living monster would require incredible power...
Besides being impractical, doing so would instantly destroy the SOUL's host.
And, unlike the persistent SOULS of humans...
The SOULS of most monsters disappear immediately upon death.
If only I could make a monster's SOUL last...
Frisk shuddered a little, he really didn't need to imagine how they had come by that information or even think of what it would mean if a monster's soul COULD last after their death beyond that of a boss monster's... He began wondering suddenly, was this a piece of the puzzle that solved the great mystery that was Sans? Could it be possible that Sans might... somehow... survive longer after death? Despite his low health and attack, Frisk didn't doubt that Sans would be considered a boss monster. Especially not after all the deaths he'd experienced first hand in his attempts to get past him the one and only time he'd done a true genocide run... which had been... what reset number HAD that been? Third? Fifth? Frisk shook away the needed to focus and that little detail didn't really matter, but he filed away the thoughts for another time. Perhaps he'd learn more about Sans while he was here; if unintentionally. At the end of the hallway, Frisk stopped to find one more panel.
Entry Number 5
I've done it.
Using the blueprints, I've extracted it from the human SOULS.
I believe this is what gives their SOULS the strength to persist after death.
The will to keep living...
The resolve to change fate.
Let's call this power...
"Determination."
Frisk's jaw nearly hit the floor. All this time, what had been pushing him forward... Alphys had called it determination... just as he would have called it and yet... he was certain this was far before his time. This had to be before he'd come here... Even if the place was well kept, this of course, meant one of only two things in terms of Alphys... Either she had been some child prodigy, which while possible he doubted, or she was a lot older than she looked to be. There was no date on the entries so it was hard to tell when they were written, but Frisk was pretty sure these weren't that recent. At the very least, they had to be four or five years old; wouldn't he have heard whispers from the residents otherwise as he'd moved through the Underground? A project this monumental couldn't simply be kept secret for that long. So then, why hadn't he heard anything about it until now? Wait... He stepped back and counted. One, two, three, four... Four panels, if this was the fifth entry... where was the fourth? He didn't think Alphys would be someone to be so absent-minded about something like this as to just misnumber her entries. Assuming these were hers, of course; they weren't signed either so there was no way to tell who had written these and there were some good chances that there had been other scientists besides Alphys who had worked down here or even for the king. He followed the bend in the hall to a larger room where he saw a door was shut tight, the four lights on it were off. He saw a note on the ground to his right and on his left was a "save point." Just to be safe he touched the glistening point first before going over and reading what little he could make out on what was scribbled there:
Elevator... Lost power... enter center room...
That was all he could read, well that was obvious, but where was Alphys? He went off to the right but the door there remained shut to him. He went back to the main door and walked up to it, but that was a no-go as well. That just left the path to the left, noticing what looked like a snack machine to the left off the door, Frisk went over to it. There were chips inside for 25 gold. He figured it couldn't hurt and bought some, sticking it into his pockets before moving on. The left path was just another hallway with more panels.
Entry Number 6
Asgore asked everyone outside the city for monsters that had "fallen down."
Their bodies came in today.
They're still comatose...
And soon, they'll all turn into dust.
But what happens if I inject "determination" into them?
If their SOULS persist after they perish, then...
Freedom might be closer than we all thought.
Frisk frowned, putting human determination into monsters? How did one even take determination from a human's soul anyway? This particular entry raised more questions than answers. He continued on. The next panel was in what appeared to be some sort of room with empty stretchers in it.
Entry Number 9
Things aren't going well.
None of the bodies have turned into dust, so I can't get the SOULS.
I told the families I would give them the dust back for the funerals.
Monsters are starting to ask me what's happening.
What do I do?
While that entry did seem to ring true for Alphys, it reminded Frisk of what he'd read about monster funerals. How they would sprinkle the dust of the monster on the things they loved the most because they believed that was how that monster continued to be. That their dust somehow inhabited them or something like that and so putting their dust on what they loved the most was a tradition among the monsters. Probably one that dated back even before books themselves. Again, this entry was a different number than the last. Where were entries seven and eight? Frisk made a note to keep an eye out for them in case they were in other rooms or to later ask Alphys herself about them. In the room was a door and also a row of sinks on the far end. Hmmm... peculiar. Why were there three? He went over to them and turned on the first one. It spouted water as he expected it would. He did the same with the second. Again water flowed, nothing unusual there. The third sink he turned on but it wasn't water that came out... instead a white substance slowly poured from it and filled up the sink. Frisk wondered at what this could mean until the white substance suddenly stopped pouring from the sink and slowly moved upwards into a disconcernable shape with a smiley face then suddenly reared up with two heads and laughter was heard even as he felt that familiar tug that told him a Fight was starting even as he stepped back from whatever it was... He wasn't sure what the heck he was looking at as it formed into three shapes that shimmered, something seemed to crackle and he pulled out his cell phone. To his surprise he could hear a multitude of voices through the receiver!
"Come join the fun." They all said. Frisk dodged what seemed to be a multitude of blobby faces that seemed to appear all around him from nowhere before he had a moment's respite... great... whatever the heck this thing was... it wasn't exactly friendly... then again what monster had been the first time aside from Toriel, Sans and Papyrus? Okay, Monster kid had been too... and the shopkeepers and townsfolk... but them aside... just about every other monster had wanted to fight. Okay, Napstablook hadn't and Mettaton was just pretending while Alphys hadn't either... nor had the River Person... but still, the point remained. He refused to join and had to dodge a second attack, but found that he could spare the ... whatever they were. Once he'd done so they disappeared, leaving behind a red key in the sink. He put it on his keychain and left the room through the second door. He found what looked to be some sort of slot, so he took off the red key from his chain and stuck it inside, turning it; it fit perfectly and the key panel began blinking red. Okay, so that was some progress right? He back tracked back to the main room. The upper left light on the central door was lit up red now. He had made progress. Well, that meant he just needed to find three more keys and their panels and activate them to open the door to the power room. Great. This was going to be lots of fun, wasn't it? He sure hoped he'd find Alphys while he was down here. What was with the power going out all of the sudden anyway?