Papyrus surveyed the cemetery carefully, taking the time to absorb his surroundings. There was a scent of mold and dirt that pervaded the cold, clammy air. He glanced around the area, paying especially close attention to the unfamiliar stones embedded in the dirt. Though their design was entirely unfamiliar to him, the names and dates inscribed on them left no doubt in his mind what they were meant to represent.

Death was never something that he'd concerned himself with. Yet here it was all around him, impossible to ignore. It brought a deep feeling of discomfort to his soul, and he fidgeted desperately, trying to find something to take it off his mind.

As he glanced around, he took notice of Mettaton, who stood in solitude a distance away. In his right hand was a small pocket mirror, which he stared into thoughtfully as he carefully parted his hair with his other hand. Putting the discomfort out of his mind, Papyrus approached him.

"Greetings, Mettaton!"

"I really should have brought my hairbrush… oh?" As Mettaton took notice of Papyrus, the heart on his abdomen glowed briefly, and his mirror vanished into extradimensional space. "What can I do for you?"

"Me? Well, I was just wondering if I could say hello to my favorite TV star. If you don't mind, that is…"

Mettaton let out a chuckle. "Don't mind? Why of course I don't mind! Whatever you need, I'm all ears!"

"That's great!" said Papyrus. "I don't have ears, so now you have enough for the both of us! Anyway… I suppose I wanted to ask how you were doing. Are you enjoying the Island so far?"

"Hmm… well, it's alright I suppose," said Mettaton. "I was expecting something a little bit more exciting. Surely a long-lost monster settlement above the surface should have more material to work with, right? A bit of drama, perhaps even a little bit of action to go with it! But no, all we've done is stand around in an old cemetery."

"It is rather gloomy, I'll admit," said Papyrus. "But that doesn't mean there's nothing interesting about it! Like being on a giant floating landmass in the sky! And, erm... well, I'm sure there's more! Maybe we can go see someplace on the Island that's less… death-ish."

"Oh, is this place making you uncomfortable? It never really crossed my mind that it would bother you," said Mettaton. "I'm rather familiar with this sort of spooky atmosphere, believe it or not. While I certainly have no problem with it, it just lacks a certain… je ne sais quoi that I've only found in show business.

"Ah, but there I go again blabbing about myself," he continued. "I'd love to hear more about one of my loyal fans. Papyrus, was it?"

"You… you remembered my name!" Papyrus declared.

"Well, you are the Ambassador of monsters," said Mettaton. "It'd certainly be a shame if I didn't remember meeting someone so important."

Papyrus began to tremble in excitement. "I… I don't believe it! After all these years, I'm finally getting the recognition that I've always wanted! Thank you, Mettaton! You've been such an inspiration to me!"

"Glad to hear it, darling," said Mettaton. "How it warms my heart to know that I've helped so many follow their dreams!"

"Well… to be honest, it wasn't really my original plan," said Papyrus.

Mettaton raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"My dream has always to become a member of the Royal Guard," said Papyrus. "All I had to do was capture a human, and I'd be revered as the savior of monsterkind!"

Mettaton's eyes widened briefly, though he quickly concealed his initial surprise. "A royal guard? …Well, with your charm, I'm certain you would have done well at whatever you set your mind to."

"You bet I would!" said Papyrus. "Undyne herself had personally trained me for three years! Had I the chance to finish my training, I would have surely become the best Royal Guard ever?"

Mettaton's smile finally crumbled away, revealing a worried frown. "Three years? Oh dear…"

"Erm, yes. Is… is something the matter?" said Papyrus.

"Alphys has told me about the Royal Guard before," said Mettaton. "She knows quite a lot about how it operates… for obvious reasons, of course. From what I've heard from her, it usually only takes two months for a recruit to complete their training."

Papyrus felt a bead of sweat beginning to drip down his cranium. "T-two months? Mettaton, what are you saying?"

"Truthfully darling, I'm not quite so sure," Mettaton replied. "But I do think that it's for the best that you don't worry too much about being a guard. What you have now is an opportunity to change the world that few other monsters will ever know. You'll be a wonderful ambassador, I'm certain."

"Alright… if you say so," said Papyrus. "I um… need to go to the bathroom. I'll see you later, I suppose."

Papyrus walked away in solitude, pondering what he'd just heard. As he did, a single question weighed heavily on his mind, drowning out all other thoughts.

Two months of training… Was Undyne holding me back?

"It's been a while since we've gotten a chance to speak face-to-face, hasn't it?" said Kazuma, addressing Itoh and Professor Booster. The others had mostly dispersed into their own separate groups, leaving himself and Momorin the only others present.

"Indeed it has," said Booster. "I've heard you've acquired your master's degree in archeology in the meantime. Congratulations on that, by the way."

"Thanks," Kazuma replied. "Dr. Kosugi says I'm the youngest in Ebotyo University's history. I'll probably be taking a break for a while before I start studying for my PhD."

Itoh chuckled. "Dr. Kosugi, huh? Small world we live in. Lemeza and I were roommates in university. Kept me up all night with his crackpot theories."

"Tell me about it," said Kazuma. "Ever since he got tenure he hasn't stopped talking about them."

"That's beside the point," Professor Booster interjected. "There's something much more important you and your mother need to know about."

"Oh? Do tell," said Momorin.

Itoh coughed. "Well, um… you see… we don't think it'll be possible for Sue and I to become human again."

"What!?" Kazuma blurted out, his sentiments echoed by Momorin.

Momorin gave Itoh an intense frown. "What do you mean my daughter can't be human again?"

"I… I'm sorry, but I don't know what I can do!" said Itoh. "What we found out while working on the latest transmogrifier changed everything!"

"This whole time, we were working off of the assumption that a mimiga's body was made out of matter," Booster added. "A completely reasonable assumption, but by no means an accurate one."

"What?" said Kazuma. "What do you mean their bodies aren't not made of matter? How is that even possible?"

"H-hey, don't ask me!" said Itoh. "We hardly even know what it is ourselves! Very little of our bodies are made of atoms or molecules. Instead, it's made of this… stuff."

"Stuff? Is that the best name you have for it?" said Momorin. "You're a man of science, not a teenager!"

"Well, I'd like to see anyone else come up with a better name for it," Itoh replied. "Unlike matter, it's infinitely divisible, and doesn't appear to be composed of any elementary particles. Transmogrifying a body made of matter would be relatively easy, but this… I don't know what we can do with this. How can we make ourselves human again if we don't even know what it is we're made of?"

"That's an easy one. You're made of magic."

Kazuma nearly jumped at Sans's sudden voice. He likely would have done so had he not been distracted by Itoh's yelp as he quite literally jumped in surprise. Momorin simply turned towards the skeleton and glared.

"Don't do that! You almost scared me half to death!" said Itoh.

"Personally, I'm a bit more concerned with his eavesdropping," said Professor Booster. "In case you didn't notice, Sans, this was supposed to be a private conversation."

Sans shrugged. "My bad. But I thought you might want an explanation. See, we monsters mostly don't have any matter in us. Our bodies are made almost entirely made of magic."

"They're made of magic?" said Kazuma.

"Yup," said Sans. "Most of the matter we have is just dust that holds our form together. The rest is magical energy that projects directly from our souls. Think of it like… a solid magical hologram."

"I think I remember Alphys mentioning something like that, actually," said Momorin. "She said you would need to convert matter to magical energy to turn a human into a monster."

"Yup," said Sans. "More importantly, you'd need to have immense power to do so. By my own estimate, at least as much as a monster with two human souls. That'd be enough to level Ebotyo ten times over."

Kazuma's jaw hung open. Silence hung over the area as he and the others simply gaped. After an uncomfortably long period, Itoh finally spoke.

"Good lord… I had no idea Misery could have been so powerful."

"To be fair," said Momorin, "we never saw her do anything to show she was using her full strength. She always let the Doctor's minions do her dirty work whenever she could."

"But all the records we've found suggest her power was restrained by the Demon Crown," said Kazuma. "If the power to turn a human into a mimiga is enough to destroy Ebotyo multiple times, and even that wasn't her full strength…"

Kazuma's words died off in his throat. He turned towards Sans, and saw that the lights in his eye sockets had gone completely dark. In a grave voice, Sans spoke.

"And do you know where Misery is right now?"