Apologies for the delay. A migraine Friday completely shut me down and I was out paintballing all day Saturday. So this was the earliest I could finish it. I'd like to say it won't happen again, but pinning down what causes these migraines has proved harder than trying to destroy a magical barrier made from the power of seven human souls. I'll do my best, that's all I can say.
"This is the second day in a row your head hasn't been in the game." Undyne was telling him the next morning as she helped him up from the snow. They were taking it a bit easier in training than yesterday to try to save the forest from any further damage but, so far, to Ryan it seemed to be making little difference. Though, he had been surprised to find that saplings were already growing out of the area he had incinerated. He had had all of about half a second to ponder over who or what could have done that before needing to prevent his skull from being caved in, and he had not had a moment of rest since. "Is this still about your girlfriend?" Undyne went on as Ryan shook the snow from his hair. "Will you just get a house with her already? It's not that big a deal."
"Why don't you let MK stay with you once school is out? It can't be that big of a deal, can it?" Ryan returned mockingly, earning him a growl from the monster. "Come on, why not?" he pressed. "You let him stay for a few weeks, show him a couple of things; I'm sure it will make his year."
The monster dropped her eye and pushed Ryan away from her, causing him to fall back into the snow. "It's not that." She said, "I'm just not good with kids."
Ryan certainly had firsthand experience with that. The young monster had cornered them once more that morning as they were leaving. He had been reluctant to go at all, as Undyne insisted that training with magic was still a good idea and he had had yet to be convinced. One close call was one too many in his book so, in a way, he was thankful when the young monster came running up to them just as they were about to make it out of the town.
"Undyne!" MK shouted through the empty town in the early hours of the morning. Ryan could not help but smile down at the monster; his tenacity was starting to warm up on him. He was not lying when he told the kid he had heart. The monster charged up to the two of them, and at the very least succeeded on not tripping over his own feet that time.
The young lizard did not speak right away though, like yesterday he merely stared up at Undyne in awe. "You still want something pipsqueak?" The guardswoman asked first.
MK blinked and shook his head to clear it. When he looked up at the monster again, he looked more nervous than anything. "Oh, well… uh…" He began to stammer before swallowing and shouting, "I was training if you would wonder me! I mean, wondering if you would train me… You know, to fight and stuff…"
Undyne did not answer at first; she looked to Ryan as if to ask if this was somehow his doing. Ryan simply looked away and began to whistle tunelessly. When she turned back to the other monster she said, "Sorry kid, but that's not happening." She turned and resumed her way out of the town, not waiting to see if anyone followed. Meanwhile, Ryan waited to see if that was the end of it.
"Wait!" MK shouted and to both his and Ryan's surprise, she did. "I… I always wanted to be in the guard." MK told her. "I want to get stronger. I want to be a hero, like you."
"Being in the guard isn't play time." She said without turning to face him. "And it's not for kids, trust me. It takes time and dedication. And both are things someone your age just doesn't have."
The young monster was still not dissuaded, however. "Well, what if I stayed with you, while school is out. It's almost done, and I already got permission from my parents to stay with a friend if they'll let me." Ryan briefly wondered if that was true. "If I do, then I'll be able to practice all the time and you can make sure I keep working."
Undyne continued to look away. She remained silent for another minute before, "Sorry kid, I'm not a babysitter," and beginning her way down the cliff once more.
"Oh, come on," Ryan spoke up finally. "You're just gonna shut him down like that?" He questioned gesturing to MK at the other monster's back.
"Let's go Ryan," was all she said to him in response. She did not even bother to stop that time.
Ryan waited until Undyne was out of earshot before saying to the other monster, "I think the whole asking to stay with her part went a bit too far."
MK let out a groan and kicked at the snow. "Me and my big mouth!" he exclaimed.
Ryan glanced back to see if the monster's constant shouting had woken anyone up, but the street remained empty. "Listen, I wouldn't write this off as a loss just yet." He told him, trying to sound confident. "I've learned there's one surefire way of getting Undyne to do what you want."
And so, as Ryan dug himself out of the snow once more, he tested his theory. "So are you saying watching a kid for a few weeks is too tough for you?"
Ryan heard the monster's teeth grind but she looked up at him with her eye narrowed. "Don't think I don't know what you're doing." She snapped at him. "Why are you helping him so much anyway?"
"It's his dream," he told her as he shrugged more snow off of his shoulders, "why wouldn't I help him?" That and he owed the monster more than one for his help in Waterfall. "And as far as I'm concerned, you haven't given sufficient reason yet as to why you aren't."
"I don't need to explain myself to you!" She snapped again. "You know, you've been getting awfully overconfident lately, talking to your teacher like that. Maybe you need to be knocked down a few pegs?"
"You're probably right," he confessed, "but I really don't think we should do it here."
Undyne put a hand to her hip and leaned against her spear. "And why is that?" she asked, dubiously.
"Well, in the two hours we've sparred for this morning, the clearing is now more crater than not," Ryan gestured to the ground around him. A number of large holes in the earth surrounded them, snow mixed with dirt piled up in large mounds around their edges. Even with magic it would take a long time to fill them all back up. "More than one tree is now embedded in the top of the dome." He didn't even want to think about that. "And, not to mention, I received a formal letter from the town last night telling us to stop destroying the forest, and I'm pretty sure you got one too."
Undyne looked around her as well, annoyed and embarrassed. "Alright, you're probably right." Her spear vanished and she began the process of undoing her armor. "Though most of that is probably because you're not focused. What do you think we should to then, Mr. Smart Guy? Because you're not getting the day off."
"I was actually hoping we go see Alphys again." He told her.
The monster looked at him sideways, pausing as she undid a strap on top of her shoulder. "Is what's got you distracted?" she questioned. "I seriously doubt she's finished already."
Ryan shook his head. "It's not that, I have another reason I'd like to go." He explained. "Besides, we did promise to go watch some anime."
.
Sallie stirred as she woke from her fitful dream. Unconsciously, she reached over to Ryan's side of the bed and was not surprised to find it empty. She stayed like that, starring at her hand resting on the empty pillow, for a minute before finally deciding to get ready to start the day.
As she got dressed she thought back on her dream, the details of which were already fading from her mind. It had not been a nightmare, per se, but more of a stress dream where she was once more watching as Ryan walked away from her and into the forest as he had that night when he ran away. She wished she could tell herself that something like that was never going to happen again, but after last night she was not so sure any longer.
Once she was dressed, she pulled the cord on the hatch that lead to the attic and let it open up enough for her to call up it, "Snowy, you awake yet?"
"Yeah, I'm up." The drake called back.
"I'm going out for a bit. You going to be okay by yourself, or do you want to come along?"
"I'll be fine." That was surprising. Snowy almost always wanted to go with either her or Ryan everywhere. She hoped what happened had not gotten to him too.
Leave the monster to his devices, she let the hatch close and went over to draw the curtains back from the balcony. On the street below she caught Ryan walking with Undyne back towards town. That was another oddity. She almost rushed out to ask him where he was going, but stopped herself as she thought back to the previous evening again. Sallie felt her chest tighten as he continued his way down the street and out of sight.
Why could things never be simple? She asked herself. "You could have moved to the city like mom said," she continued out loud. "Met a nice monster, settled down. But no, you fall for the only one in the Underground capable of ignoring his own feelings." If those even are his feelings, a voice in the back of her head teased. She tried to fight it off with a shake of her head, but it would not go away. It did not make any sense, why would he still be with her if those weren't his feelings? But with him you could never be sure.
A weight fell onto her arm and she looked down to find she had somehow managed to tear the curtain from its rod. She let it drop to the floor, unsure what to even make of it. Ryan had vanished beyond her sight for several minutes at that point. With a sigh, she turned away from the glass doors and went to go downstairs. If she were lucky, the one she was hoping to meet would not have left yet. If Ryan would not give her any answers, perhaps someone else would.
.
Sallie was not lucky, as it turned out. She went up to the skeleton's house only to be met with silence as she knocked on the door. Not ready to give up or wait who knew how long for him to get back, she headed out to the forest. She had walked past the skeleton's sentry station trying to find Ryan last night and so she was sure she could find the way again.
While she walked, she tried to figure out how to bring up the subject, though with Papyrus, jumping right into it hardly seemed to matter, but the skeleton was more likely to let something slip if she merely let him go off on his own with a little guidance. She stopped in the middle of the forest as a thought occurred to her.
"Holy crap, I'm turning into my mother…" She said aloud. A white speck fell in front of her eyes and then another. She tried to focus on it but it vanished amongst the rest of the white that covered the forest before she could find it again. Soon more specks fell, though, and Sallie looked up to see countless more falling from seemingly thin air above her. She smiled to herself. Rarely did it ever actually snow in Snowdin, and the residents had a belief that the snow meant that better times were ahead. "Guess I should cheer up then, huh?" She said to the air above her. "Well, let's see how this goes first."
The snowfall stayed light as she made her way up and out of the valley and trees around her began to get shorter and less frequent. Her mood seemed to lighten as she rose out of the forest and immediately dipped back down when she found the skeleton's sentry station empty.
The shabby wooden structure looked like it might fall apart at any second but it was clear of snow as if she had only just missed the monster. She let out a breath. There was no point in going looking for him; he would likely end up heading back to town before she found him. She decided to wait.
A short ways away the plateau dropped off to the rest of the forest below. Sallie sat down and looked over the trees as the snow continued to fall around her. She was reminded of the time Ryan had brought her to that cave filled with crystals, how the light shimmered and bounced off every surface. She was almost sure she could find it again from where she was. But even if she found it, she knew very little in the way of magic and would not be able to recreate the scene. Besides, it would not be the same without him anyway.
The sound of crunching snow from behind dragged Sallie from her thoughts. She turned to see Papyrus walking up the path behind her. The skeleton looked slightly surprised to see her, she supposed he did not get many visitors out this far.
"Greetings, Sallie." The skeleton said as she stood up from the cliff.
"Hey, Papyrus. What were you doing?" Sallie asked to make conversation.
Papyrus pointed over his shoulder as he answered. "I had to check on Mr. Lazybones's station, of course, otherwise it would fall to ruins." The skeleton let out a breath. "I don't know how my brother ever manages to function on his own sometimes… But, that aside, what brings you out here?"
Sallie gave the forest once last glance before answering. "What do you know about the ruins, Papyrus?"
"You mean the old city?" The skeleton brushed a gloved hand across his chin as he thought. "The same as everyone else, I suppose; that it was where all monsters lived in the beginning, and that it was sealed off some time ago for reasons unknown. Why do ask?"
"Ryan said he used to live there for a time." Sallie explained. "Did he ever mention that when you first met him?"
"I can't say he did, no. Ryan did not say much of anything when we first met." The skeleton admitted.
"Figures…" Sallie said to herself.
"Did something happen?" The skeleton asked. "What brought all of this up?"
Sallie thought about how to answer that question. "Have you ever wondered why Ryan's is doing what he's doing?"
"Not really, why?"
Sallie frowned, of course he did not. "He says he wants to save us, but he's never explained why. You've never wondered what his reason was?"
Papyrus walked up next to her and joined in looking out over the forest. "It's because he cares about us, isn't it?"
"True, but it's more than that. He felt that way before he knew any of us. Ever since he left the ruins he's been trying to get to the king to try to save us." Sallie reached her hand out and watched as flakes began to gather in her palm. "And yet, from what he's told me, he would have been better off if he never left. I just don't get it."
A silence hung between the two monsters for a moment. Sallie watched the snowflakes start to melt in her hand. "When I first met Ryan, it just seemed to me like he was trying to run away." Papyrus told her.
Sallie nodded. "Something happened while he was in the ruins, something that made him leave the life he had there and come here, but I don't know what it is."
"So, ask him." The skeleton reasoned.
"I have asked him." She stated. "He says he can't tell me or the universe will explode, or at least that's how he makes it sound…"
"I'm sure there's a reason if he's keeping it to himself."
Sallie looked up at the monster. "But what if it's something bad?" Now it was out, the heat of her worry over the whole matter, she did not want to think about what that meant if it turned out to be true.
Papyrus looked away for a moment as he tried to come up with and answer. "If it is, would that change how you see him?" He asked finally.
"Of course not," she told him resolutely.
"Then why does it matter?"
The question caught Sallie off guard; she had not thought of it like that. It did matter, she did not like having secrets between them, but he would tell her eventually, when this was all over. She could wait until then, she was sure. And whatever it was would hardly change things between them. At the end of the day, she still loved him and he still loved her. He did, she was sure of it.
"It sure is beautiful when it snows, isn't it?" The skeleton asked absently.
Sallie threw her arms around the monster. "Thanks Papyrus, you always know how to make people feel better."
.
"I still think you should watch MK once school lets out." Ryan told Undyne as they made their way through Waterfall's caves once more.
"You're still on about that?" the monster shot back at him. He was almost surprised the light of the water beneath them did not shrink away from her gaze, but he stood his ground.
"You haven't said yes yet." He reminded her.
"Well why on earth do you think I would?" Undyne criticized. "Do you honestly expect me to train him? For one, I have my hands full as it is with you. Second, he's too young to start yet anyway."
"I thought you started when you were nine?" Ryan disputed.
"That was a special circumstance." She said in a tone that told him to drop the subject. "And they soon decided never to do it again."
Ryan looked off in thought at the crystal encrusted roof of the cave. "I guess you have a point," he said absently. "Still, I don't think it's an answer the kid will accept. He'll probably just sneak off every day and follow you around regardless of what you say. In that case, wouldn't it be better if his parents had at least some idea of where he was?"
"If he sneaks off, then I'll kick his butt all the way back home until he learns his lesson." The monster countered.
Ryan shook his head. "I don't think that's the right way to go about it at all. You don't need to actually teach him anything either. Like Papyrus, I doubt he'd know the difference. Just give him enough to satisfy and keep him busy with trying to trying something difficult but harmless. That's what I've been doing with Snowy."
"If you're so sure that will work than why don't you take him?" She questioned.
"Because he doesn't want to be trained by me, he wants to be trained by you. And because you came up with that entire argument in the time it took us to walk here, so I'm still half-convinced that I'm making some sort of progress with this."
"Well, think again, because I'm not taking him." The monster affirmed.
"Fine," Ryan kept on. "If you won't then perhaps Sallie and I will. I doubt she'd have a problem hosting one more, and that way you'll have to deal with him on a day to day basis anyway."
"Sallie thinks her house is crowded enough as is, based on what you've told me." She reminded him. "And if that's how everything ends up, then I'll just scare him off."
Ryan chuckled to himself. "Yeah, that will work." He said sarcastically.
.
The snow was done by the time Sallie made it back to town, but it had definitely left its mark on those now out and about. Everyone seemed happier than she could remember seeing in a long time. Most even gave her a smile and a wave as she passed, which she was more than happy to return while she tried to figure out what to do with the rest of her day.
Her help was not needed at the shop that day, so she decided to head to Grillby's for a little while and absorb some of what other's thought the good omen meant for them. Along the way, something crashed into the side of her leg with an oof nearly causing her to tumble into the snow. As she caught herself, she looked down to see the familiar face of a young lizard monster with his eyes squeezed shut and shaking his head. As he looked up at her he quickly looked away, embarrassed.
"Sorry," he said softly. "I wasn't watching where I was going."
Sallie knelt down to the monster and put on a smile, trying to ignore the pain in her leg. "And just where are you off to in such a hurry?" She asked him.
The monster went from embarrassed to nervous in a flash. "Um, nowhere…" he said, still not meeting her gaze. "Just heading home."
"Oh?" Sallie said, playing along for the moment. "Are you sure you weren't trying to sneak off to find Undyne?"
The monster practically jumped out of his scales at her words. "H-how did you know?" He stammered and then something seemed to come to him. "Wait, I recognize you. You were with that Snowdrake! Did he rat me out again?"
"You mean Snowy?" Sallie asked.
MK stomped the ground in anger and finally looked up at her. "Yeah! Tell him to leave me alone. I don't go rubbing my nose in his business all the time!"
The monster made Sallie giggle. "I'm sure he had the best intentions at heart." She told him.
"No! He's annoying." MK maintained.
"Then I'll be sure to tell him. But first, why are you trying to go after Undyne exactly?" Ryan had neglected to tell her that part, but she thought she had a good guess as to why.
The monster went back to looking embarrassed before answering. "Look, don't tell anyone this, but I kinda goofed up…"
"How so?"
"I… kind of asked Undyne if I could live with her over school break… And so I was going to find her to clear that up."
"Why would you need to do that? You live just outside of town."
"I don't know…"
A thought occurred to Sallie. "Is it because Snowy is living with Ryan and me?"
"No!" MK said defensively once more looking up at her. Sallie held his gaze for a moment and his eyes dropped. "Yes…" The monster looked off for another moment until he snapped to her. "He's getting trained by him, isn't he? Why else would a Snowdrake be living in town? It isn't fair!"
Sallie giggled behind her hand again. "Snowy's circumstances are… a bit different from yours." She explained in an attempt to appease the monster. "And a little advice, the two things that will always keep you from what you want are jealousy and envy. It's more important to focus on what you want than what someone else has. You don't need to be living with Undyne to be taught by her." Though she hardly understood why the monster would want her as a teacher in the first place. Then again, she's crazy, violent, and strong; everything kids love to look up to. Perhaps if she had another student to look after, she would be a little easier on Ryan with her attention split.
Sallie smiled at the young monster again. "How about I get you a soda or something and we'll wait for her together?" she offered. "I'll even help you figure out what you should say to her.
MK perked up instantly. "Really?"
"Sure, come on." She stood up and the young monster fell in beside her. The two entered the restaurant and took a seat at one of the booths near the windows at the front. Sallie went up and bought drinks for her and the other monster and went back to the table.
"Do you want to hear about the time I first met Undyne?" MK asked her.
"Sure," Sallie told him.
"So, I was in Waterfall, right? And I hear Undyne is chasing after a human…" Sallie tuned out the monster's words after a minute while still making it look like she was paying attention. Her eyes landed on one of the monsters sitting at the bar, though she looked far too young to be there. The monster was made up entirely of green fire and she wore the school uniform used in New Home. Sallie wondered what she was doing there; a friend of Grillby's? The monster turned to Sallie all of the sudden and locked eyes with her before she could look away. The fire monster smiled before turning back to the bar.
What was that about? She asked herself.
.
Alphys lit a small flame and let it float in the middle of the small box she had constructed on the desk. The box was open on the side facing her and she pulled her hand away from it quickly once the fire had formed. Sliding her chair over to a computer on the other side of the room, she typed in a command and looked back to the box. Its outside was made of polished metal and was nothing special, but the inside surfaces were made up of grids of small panels that lit up as the machine powered on. The light grew brighter until the walls of the box looked like solid squares of white. Everything seemed to be working so far.
She looked back to the computer to check her data. All of the energy levels were stable, and there was no measureable interference from the walls interacting with each other. She looked back to the box. The small flame she had made still danced in the center. Sliding closer once more, she slowly moved the flame toward the back of the box. When it was about an inch from the wall, the flame seemed to be sucked into it, disappearing into the light. Alphys waited a moment, staring into the now empty box, before jumping out of her chair. "It worked!" She exclaimed.
Then, the machine started to whir softly and she looked at it curiously. "What the…?" The wiring became louder and suddenly there was a pop that made Alphys hop back and cover her eyes. When she looked back, the light in the box was gone and all of the panels that covered the inner surfaces looked like they had shattered. With a sigh, the doctor went back to her computer to see what had happened.
Scrolling through the lines of the log, she whispered to herself, "Still haven't figured out how to get rid of the feedback loop…"
"So I take it progress is being made?" Ryan's voice came from over her shoulder and she nearly latched onto the ceiling. Turning around, she saw both him and Undyne standing behind her.
"H-h-how did you get in here?" She asked in her shock.
"Your door broke." Undyne told her, smiling as if proud of that fact.
"I did not break it this time." Ryan added.
"I did," Undyne declared.
"Yeah, she did."
"Wha… Why are you…?" The doctor struggled, still heavily startled.
"Here?" Undyne finished. "Well, you said you wanted to hang out, right? So here we are!" The monster gestured with her arms spread out. "Plus, I think Ryan wanted something." She added as an afterthought, gesturing to him with her head.
Still half in a daze, Alphys turned to the human. "What is it?"
"I know we've already put quite a bit on your plate," he began as he fished into his pocket. "But I was wondering if you'd be able to do something else for me." He held out his phone to the monster who looked at it blankly.
"Your phone?" Alphys asked, confused. "Is it broken again?"
"No, actually I was wondering if you could build another one for me."
"Build you another?" The monster echoed, not quite understanding.
"Yup, an exact copy. Well not exact, some stuff can be felt off of it, the gun and the jetpack for instance."
As his words finally came together in her head, Alphys finally snapped out of her shock. "Wait, seriously?" The doctor almost sprung to take the phone from his hand. "Not that I'm saying I won't, but why?"
Ryan smiled. "It's a surprise for someone. So is that a yes?"
"Of course!" Alphys looked at the phone almost reverently. "Wow, where do I even begin?" she whispered to herself.
"Hold on," Undyne spoke up. "I'm lost here. It's just a phone, right? What's the big deal?"
Alphys turned on the other monster, appalled. "Undyne, you don't understand. This phone is leagues ahead of any other technology we have down here and it doesn't even use magic. The processing power, its speed, even its storage surpasses all of the computers I have in my lab combined! And it fits in the palm of my hand! If I can figure out how to replicate this technology… Anything I can learn from it will jump us ahead decades. Just imagine the possibilities!"
Undyne continued to look down at the monster blankly. "I don't see it," she said after a moment.
Alphys looked like she was ready to go on another one of her hour long explanations, so Ryan cut her off. "While I have no problem with you taking your time to learn anything you can, replicating takes priority. I kind of need this on the quick side."
"How quick?" Alphys asked, looking back to him.
"A week?"
The doctor's eyes widened behind her glasses for a moment. "I-I don't know if I can manage that." she admitted quietly. "Not on top of the other stuff."
"If it pushes back the other thing then so be it. This is more important."
"Hey," The other monster chimed in. "What makes you think you get to decide what's more important?"
"Because if this doesn't happen, we'll have a lot more to worry about than finding a place to train, trust me." He explained to the monster. "Any more than that, I can't say."
"And why not?"
"Because if I told you it would stay a secret for all of ten minutes once we get back to Snowdin."
"That doesn't mean you get to-"
"Actually, Undyne?" Alphys interrupted. "What I could learn from this would probably speed up work on the room by a lot. It's proving to be a much greater hassle than I originally thought, and one of the main things is too much happens for me to keep track of and try to compensate for too fast. And I simply don't have the capabilities to improve upon the technology we already have. Actually, if it hadn't been for this, I probably would have told you it was impossible in another day or two…"
The guardswoman looked between Ryan and the other monster before realizing she was beat and looking away angrily. "Fine," she conceded.
"Look at it this way," Ryan told her. "Now you'll have more time to think about taking in MK over break." He smiled back at the monster's scowl.
"Wait, you're what?" Alphys inquired, clearly panicked by what she was hearing.
"She's going to be letting a kid stay with her while she gives him some training for a while." Ryan said before anyone else could get a word in.
"I am not-!" she began to yell at Ryan before turning to Alphys and saying in a much more controlled voice, "I am not doing that."
The doctor sighed. "Oh, thank God."
The other monster stopped what she was about to say next and blinked down at the doctor. "What's that supposed to mean?" she questioned.
"Well, I mean, come on. You with a kid?" The doctor let out a chuckle before going on. "That just sounds like something that should never happen."
"Why would you say that?" The monster questioned. If Ryan did not know any better, he would have said she was hurt by Alphys's words. "I deal with immature brats every day." She glanced over to Ryan who merely smirked back at her.
"Be that as it may," the doctor went on, "Actually looking after a kid is another matter entirely. And for the sake of that kid, it's a matter that should never come to fruition."
"Why is that?" Undyne continued to question. "Do you think I can't handle it?"
Alphys shook her head as if wondering why she was even still humoring the thought. "What does it matter? You already you weren't doing it, right?"
The monster blinked as if caught off guard "Yeah…"
"Good. As for you," she turned back to Ryan, "for the sake of the kid's livelihood, you should probably stop trying to push this on her."
Ryan looked up at Undyne, his face betraying no emotions. "Fine," he said, "I see your point."
"Alright then. Sometimes I wish I knew what was going on around you two in Snowdin, but then you start going on about stuff like this and I'm too afraid to ask." She chuckled to herself again. "Come on Ryan; let's go work out the details of this phone thing."
Nodding, Ryan let the monster lead the way out of the room. "I might be able to help explain how a few things work." He told her. "At least in a general sense. Enough to find your own way from at least. Aside from that, I only need a few things left off of the copy."
Alphys paused outside the doorway and peeked her head back in. "You coming, Undyne?"
Ryan realized the other monster was still standing in the room, looking at nothing. "You go on ahead." She said. "I'll wait in the lobby."
A few minutes later, with the details worked out, Ryan and Undyne were on their way back to down, the doctor saying she had far too much to do now to watch shows that day though Ryan had remembered to bring it up. All for the better, he guessed. He could tell Undyne was not really in the mood at the moment. The monster kept silent and staring straight ahead as they walked back. It was not until they were about half way until the monster finally spoke up.
"Do you know when the kid's break starts?" she asked, and then added, "It's only just a couple months, right?"
"Does this mean…?" he asked in return.
"I'll talk to his parents once we get back. I still think this is a bad idea though."
Ryan smiled to himself. "I knew you'd come around."
The monster punched him in the arm a little too hard for him to think she was not angry with him. "You planed all that out, didn't you?"
Ryan laughed. "No, I am not nearly that smart." Still, it did end up working in the end.
.
"… but I tripped and fell off the bridge," MK was still going on from his seat across from Sallie. To her, it barely seemed like the monster had taken a breath since he began. Perhaps giving him soda had been a bad idea. She had been trying to pick up some of the other conversations going on throughout the restaurant. Most of the talk was about how they thought the snow meant that Ryan would be leaving soon and it put a heavy dampener on her mood. "Luckily I was able to grab onto something with my teeth before I fell too far." The young monster continued, unaware Sallie was not even pretending to pay attention at that point. "So I'm hanging from the ledge, Undyne's on my left, Ryan's on my right… Hey! Hey, Ms. Sallie. They're back!"
Sallie focus snapped back to the monster and it took her a second to realize what he had said. Looking over her shoulder out the window, she caught sight of Ryan just as he walked by. MK was up and running for the door before she could say a word so Sallie grabbed her coat and followed after.
A quick glance up and down the street told her that the monster had already followed after the other two who were heading in the direction of her house. "Undyne!" MK shouted after the monster as he ran down the street, kicking up the fresh snow with every step. The two both turned as he and Sallie caught up to them. Ryan gave Sallie a smile and a curious raise of the eyebrows before turning his attention back to the other monsters.
Undyne looked down at MK and smiled. To Sallie, that smile looked all too sinister. "Hey, I was just about to go looking for you." She told him.
"Yeah, I wanted to apologize for what I said this morning and…" MK began before realizing what she had said. "Wait, you were looking for me?"
"Yeah, I've decided I will teach you a thing or two over break. You could even stay with me if you'd like, well, stay with Papyrus maybe…"
The young monster beamed up at both Ryan and Undyne turning his head back and forth between them with a smile almost as wide as his head. After a moment he let out a high pitched noise of excitement that made Sallie wince.
"I will say this again though: this training is not for kids. It is not to be taken lightly, and you are most likely not ready for it. Don't expect to last more than a week before you have to go home." Undyne held up a finger before going on. "I'll give you once chance to say no now and still let you join the recruits in the city in a few years. But if you start now and then drop it, I'll never show you anything in the future. Do you still want to give it a shot?"
"Heck yeah!" The monster shouted without hesitation.
"Good. Then let's go tell your parents." Undyne began walking in the direction of the town's edge without saying goodbye to either Ryan or Sallie or even turning to look at them. MK chased after her once he remembered how his legs worked.
Sallie stepped up to Ryan and joined him in watching after the two. "Does she really think his parents are going to agree to that?" she asked him.
"Oh, there's not a chance in hell of that happening." Ryan agreed. "But I'm just surprised things got this far. I with the kid luck, however things end up."
"So, the rumors are true," said a voice from behind them as it emerged from Grillby's. The two turned and Sallie found the green fire monster she had seen at the bar stepping up to them. She was looking up at Ryan with an air of satisfaction. "There is a human among us." She finished
She stepped closer, ignoring Sallie completely, to stand right under him. "I was hoping it would be you," she added.
Sallie immediately did not like this monster and how familiar she was acting towards Ryan considering she had never even seen her before today. She was on his arm a moment later. "Ryan, mind explaining who your friend is?" she as she gave the other monster a look that told her to back off.
"Ruby, right?" he asked the fire monster who nodded in response. "I ran into her while we were both trying to escape from Hotland." He explained
"By the way, again, thank you for that." Ruby interjected.
"That brings you a little far away from home, doesn't it?" Sallie asked the other monster, trying not to let any of her irritation leech into her voice. The girl had not moved back in the slightest; she had not even looked at her.
Ryan leaned down to Sallie and whispered in answer, "She's Grillby's daughter." Sallie looked back up at him in disbelief. She had known the monster practically her whole life and she had no idea he had a kid.
"I am," The monster confirmed. "As to why I'm here, I was thinking of staying here with my dad while school was out." Oh joy, Sallie thought. "You see, I had my suspicions when we first met that you were a human, and when I got here and found that a human was the only thing everyone was talking about I knew I was right."
"You had suspicions?" Ryan questioned and the monster nodded again.
"Humans are a great interest to me, so I know more than most monsters what they look like, even if they are hiding their soul." Sallie noticed Ryan automatically bring up a hand to cover his chest. "I've always wanted to study them, and so I couldn't pass up this opportunity." She explained. "I was hoping to run into you so I could see if you'd be alright with me asking you some questions from time to time once I settle in. I promise anything said will stay between you and me. I can see that you're more or less hiding out here, and I won't pry as to why. My dad trusts you, so I do too."
Ryan opened his mouth to answer, but Sallie beat him to the punch. "And just why would he agree to that exactly?"
The fire monster turned her gaze to her at last. She looked Sallie up and down and seemed to find her wanting. Her eyes lingered on her arms wrapped around his longest of all. "And just who are you, exactly?" She asked, somehow managing to make that sound cordial.
Sallie felt Ryan tense before he answered. "Right… Ruby, this is Sallie. She is my girlfriend, and I totally did not just forget to introduce her."
Sallie stepped between Ryan and the monster and held out her hand. "It's good to meet you," she managed to make sound just as friendly. After the slightest hesitation, the fire monster extended a gloved hand to shake. The monster was wearing one of the thickest coats Sallie had ever seen, but her legs were bare aside from knee high socks. How the monster was not miserable standing outside she did not know.
The two of them held each other's gaze for another moment before letting their hands drop and Sallie returned to Ryan's side. "So about the questions?" Ruby pressed.
Ryan shrugged. "Sure, I don't see why not."
Sallie made the move to protest, but the other monster cut her off. "Excellent." She announced. "Until then." The fire monster almost ran back towards the restaurant and was inside before Ryan could even say a word of goodbye. Perhaps she was more affected by the cold than she let on.
"What's so funny?" Ryan asked her and Sallie realized she was laughing softly to herself.
"Nothing," she told him as she tried to regain control over herself, "just trying to imagine Grillby as a father."
"Yeah, I had trouble believing it at first too." The two turned and began to make their way back home.
"Why would you agree to that?" Sallie asked before they made it back. "She goes to school in the city, one slip and your cover is blown, even if it's by accident."
"To be honest, I'm more worried about pissing off Grillby than anything. He seems like the kind of guy that would be very… supportive of his daughter." Sallie realized there was some merit to his words. Grillby was a monster very capable of tossing anyone across town if they got on his bad side. She did not doubt he could stand toe to toe with a human as well, even Ryan.
As they made their way upstairs, Sallie found her mother waiting for them in the kitchen. Draped over the table was one of the curtains from their room which she was mending. Sallie clenched her jaw at the sight and knew that it had not escaped her mother's attention. "Well, well," she said as she looked up from her work and saw them enter. "It's very rare you two return together. Did you have an interesting day?"
"Actually, we just met up." Sallie clarified before she could start delving deeper into a matter she would rather avoid at that moment. "I noticed you went into Waterfall again today." She directed at Ryan. "What was that about?"
"Just another trip to see Doctor Alphys." He answered simply.
"Same reason as yesterday?"
"No, different reason." He told her. He took off his jacket and threw it into their room before taking his sword off and placing it against the wall.
"And what would that be?" Sallie prodded.
"Nothing really." He said after a moment.
"Does it have something to do with what we talked about yesterday?"
Ryan looked to her before chuckling to himself. "No, it doesn't. Don't worry."
"I can't help but worry when it comes to you, Ryan." She told him. "If it has nothing to do with it, then why won't you tell me?"
"Because, it's not important." He affirmed.
"If it's not important then why won't you tell me?"
"Does it really matter?"
"Yes it matters!" She shouted and Ryan froze on his way behind the kitchen counter. "I'm sick of dancing back and forth around truth, Ryan. Do you think I like the fact that you're keeping secrets from me? I was willing to accept it once, but that doesn't suddenly mean I'm going to let this be a regular thing."
For a moment, Ryan simply continued to stand there, his damned face completely unreadable. Then he leaned onto the counter and let out a breath. "I don't know what to say…"
Sallie shook her head. "I don't believe you." She said before grabbing her coat and storming out of the house.
"Sallie wait!" Ryan called after her, but it was too late.
After a drawn out silence, Sallie's mother, still sitting at the table, chuckled. "I hope whatever it is you're keeping from her is worth it, boy." Sallie's mother said. "For all our sakes."
...
The days that followed, if Ryan had to put a word to them, were dull, but dull in probably the best of ways. Training had tapered off to nothing until Undyne finally admitted they should just wait until Alphys was finished or risk the town's wrath. Sallie seemed to be avoiding Ryan whenever possible, but she hid it very well when being in the same room could not be helped. Still, Ryan did not press her, not yet.
Having nothing better to do, he and Undyne ended up going to see Alphys nearly every day to watch shows or simply hang out in general. Ryan had questioned how the constant interruptions would be delaying her, but he soon realized that if they had not come to make her take a break, she probably would have never stopped. He knew monsters did not really need to sleep, but he also knew that doing so had its benefits and he worried what its lack was doing to the doctor.
That evening, however, he found himself with Snowy in his room above Sallie's house. The monster had really made the attic his own; Walls of ice divided the space up into smaller rooms connected by tunnels that ran between them. The one they sat in was the largest by far, taking up half of the attic's space, and it was empty except for them. Snowy had set the space aside for learning magic, something he had taken a great deal of interest in since moving in with Ryan, and Ryan decided there was no harm in trying to show him what he could.
The young monster was just beginning to get the hang of wind magic. He stood in the center of the room trying to form a small twister over the floor. So far, he had succeeded twice in the past hour, and both times he had lost hold on it almost instantly. But he was making progress, and so he was not about to give up.
Ryan sat at the edge of room, his head in a book he had read a good three times already, and waited for the next question Snowy would ask to try to better understand what he was doing wrong. Based on the number of frustrated grunts he heard since his last question, it would not be much longer. He lowered the book to see the monster with his wings to his sides, staring through the floor as he was deep in thought. He looked like he was breathing heavy. "Maybe you should take a break," Ryan suggested. For a moment he thought the monster would refuse, but eventually he walked over and sat down next to Ryan, still looking lost in his thoughts. "Something on your mind?" he asked. Snowy shook his head, his plume of feathers moving out of sync with the rest of him. Ryan did not buy it for a second. "Come on, out with it."
The monster was silent for a moment still. "Ryan," he paused in hesitation, "about what I said the other day…"
"About me being 'The Prophesized Angel'?" Ryan interrupted. "Don't worry about it. It just caught me off guard is all. I'm not mad or anything."
"But, aren't you? The Angel, I mean." The monster looked up at him hopefully and it brought a pang of guilt to Ryan's heart. He closed his book at set it down next to him with a sigh.
He took a moment to figure out how to word what he should say. "I guess, depending on how you interpret it, I could be. But I don't think I am, no."
The monster stood up and turned to face him. "But who else could it be? You're a human from the surface that's trying to figure out how to destroy the barrier so that monsters can go free. How is that not the angel from the prophecy?"
"Because that's the problem with prophecy," he explained. "It's all a matter of how you look at it. The same could be said for the king, couldn't it? He was alive to have seen the surface, and he's also trying to destroy the barrier. Couldn't that just as easily make him The Angel?" The monster's gaze dropped and though it pained him to crush his hopes, Ryan went on. "You see? It's purposefully vague so that you can't know what it really means. Now, some think that's so no one can change fate, others believe it's just so it has a higher chance of being right. Either way, it's not something I would put a lot of faith into.
"I'm not saying I couldn't be the one in the prophecy; I can't concretely prove one way or the other, but I'm not the first human to fall into the Underground, and if something goes wrong, I probably won't be the last. If you think that I'll be the one to do it, that's fine. But I'd rather it be because you believed in me instead of some fortune that could have been given by a loon for all we know."
That garnered a chuckle from the monster. "I think I see what you're saying."
"Good," Ryan said rubbing his head. "Hungry? You've been working pretty hard today."
"Are you ever going to show me how you're able to go so long without eating now?" the monster asked.
Ryan inhaled through his teeth at the monster's question. "I don't really think that's a thing I could teach."
"Why?"
"Because I don't really understand it myself." He explained.
The monster chuckled again. "Well, you should probably work on that then."
Ryan found himself laughing as well. "Oh, believe me, I have been."
...
"What do you think we should watch next?" Alphys asked Ryan as they walked through the halls of the lab. The last few days had been like a trip through time for him, going through several different anime he had almost forgotten existed, including several that were not the kind you watched with other people, let alone Alphys and Undyne. It had been an interesting time to say the least.
"I don't know; we're running low on the ones that you have that I know." Ryan answered. "Why don't we let Undyne pick one?"
"She'd probably just pick Bleach again…" The monster said almost morosely.
"Again?" Ryan said disbelievingly.
"Yup…" she maintained. "She's made me watch the whole thing through three times already.
Ryan stopped and did the math in his head. "That's over a hundred and forty hours of anime one time through."
"Have you seen all of it?" The doctor asked.
"Yes I have." And he was sure whether to be proud of that fact or not. He supposed that explained where Undyne got some of her craziness as well as some of her misconceptions regarding how life on the surface works.
The two reached the end of the hall and a door slid open for them. In the center of the room beyond, sat what he had been told was finally ready, and not a moment too soon. "There you are." Alphys said as she gestured to a table. On top sat his phone, looking no different than it had before he had handed it over to her, and next to it sat an exact replica.
He picked up both and turned them on. They were the same to a t; same background, same passcode, same files – that would have to be changed a bit – and most importantly: the same music. "You've outdone yourself Alphys." He told the doctor as he placed both of the phones in the pockets of his jeans.
"Thanks," the monster said with an awkward smile. "I probably wouldn't have been able to it without you help in explaining what a lot of it did. I had no idea the infrastructure of computer components could be so… intricate.
"The only thing I'm mad about was that I didn't get a chance to look through the code of it at all, I only had time to copy it all over. I saved a good deal of it, so I'll be able to give it a look later. Anyway, everything from the original is there, minus what we talked about.
I didn't look at any of the personal stuff, I swear."
"Don't worry Doctor, I trust you. And thanks, Alphys. This means a lot." The monster smiled at him again. "Did you take the stuff we discussed out of mine too?"
The doctor suddenly looked awkward. "About that…"
"Alphys…" Ryan began. "We've been over this: I don't need a gun in phone anymore."
"Actually, it was Undyne who told me to leave it in. She said it was good to have options in a fight, even ones you're sure you'll never use." Ryan sighed and the monster went on. "I did alter the makeup a bit, though. I made it a bit more wieldy now. I understand you've taken to fighting with a sword so you can carry it in one hand now."
He sighed again. "Fine, I guess I've lost this one. Welp, I gotta go give the other one to who it was meant for."
"I should warn you," the doctor said, stopping him before he could leave. "The replica isn't actually as fast as or as powerful as the original – I don't think I could ever make a processor that intricate – though I've done my best to supplement the difference with magic. But since I don't yet know how everything works one hundred percent, somethings might not work as intended."
"I'm sure she won't notice the difference." Ryan told her, patting the replica phone in his pocket.
"So it's for Sallie then?" Alphys inquired.
"Hopefully."
.
Ryan knocked on the door though it was already open. He waited out in the hall until a defeated "come in," answered him. Sallie was lying in bed with her back to him. She had a book in her hand which she did not put down as he entered.
Walking around the bed he got down to his knees and plopped his arms and head down on the bed. The monster finally lowered the book and looked at him. "What?" she asked, clearly wishing he was somewhere else.
"When was the last time we went on an adventure?" he asked her, smiling excitedly.
"An adventure?" Sallie asked in return sounding more like she did not hear rather than did not understand.
"Yeah, like the cave with the crystals, remember?"
"I remember." The monster still was not giving him anything. Her eyes were back on the book, which at the very least she did not put in front of his face again.
"How about we go on another one?" He tried anyway.
"Why?" The monster questioned.
"Why not?" He hardly thought he'd need more explanation than that. Mad at him or not, he knew how much she enjoyed their trips. And before long she was up and putting on a coat.
She turned back to look at him in the doorway. "Well? Are you coming or not?" She still sounded mad at him, but at least he was getting somewhere.
.
"Have you ever been in Waterfall?" Ryan asked her once they were close to the edge of the forest.
"Not very deep." Sallie told him. The monster still refused to look at him.
"Well, it's possibly the largest treasure trove of wonders I've found down here so far." Ryan went on. He had decided to try to find one of the caves he remembered seeing the first time he had run through it. He could think of no better place for what he had planned.
The two stepped into the cave and were silent until they made it into the first cavern. Ryan stood at the edge of the cliff overlooking the cascading falls and Sallie stepped up behind him. "So, how do we get there?" The monster looked down over the cliff anxiously.
"Actually that's the first complication," Ryan explained. "I've only ever been there once and I was kind of being chased at the time."
"So how are we going to find it then?"
"Don't worry; I'm an expert at retracing my steps." He told her with a confident smile.
The monster looked up at him skeptically before turning and walking towards the start of the path down. "Where do we start then?"
"Well, that day, it started like this." Sallie realized that Ryan was not following her and turned just in time to see him jump from the cliff and disappear below it. Letting out a scream, she ran back to the cliff. The sight of Ryan falling back first with his eyes closed came back into view. In her panic, Sallie saw no way to save him. Seeing no other option, she jumped as well.
Reaching out futilely, she let out another scream which made Ryan open his eyes. The man looked up at her, first in confusion and then worry. He spread his arms out and he suddenly rushed up to meet her and he wrapped himself around her screaming form as she clung to him in desperation and fear.
They hit the water with a muted crash. Sallie shut her eyes and waited for something worse to happen. After a moment Ryan began to move and she continued to hold on to him. Before she knew it, they broke to the surface and were on the ground at the edge of the pool. Sallie let go of Ryan and plopped down on the ground where she stayed for a good minute just panting away the whole event.
Ryan walked into her vision and knelt over her. Grabbing her shoulders he tried to lift her up but she struggled from his grip while trying to punch him in the face. She only succeeded in knocking him in the chest a few times which only produced laughter from him. "So I take it you're okay then?" He asked, trying to control himself.
"You are such a jerk!" She shouted at him.
"I didn't think you would jump after me like that." He said in his defense, still laughing between his words.
Sallie, now sitting up, looked down at the state she was in. "Now I'm soaked." She groaned. Standing up and moving further from the water she took off her coat and started to wring it out as best she could. Suddenly, a gust of warm air whipped around her, nearly knocking her off her feet before another from behind caught her and kept her standing. The wind continued for another moment before vanishing as quickly as it had come and when it was done she was perfectly dry. She turned to a smirking Ryan still standing by the edge of the water, just as dry as she was. "Wow, you're actually useful for once." She joked.
Ryan put a hand over his soul and bent over in mock pain. "Oh, you wound me!" he cried dramatically.
Sallie chuckled and walked back over to him. "Oh, I'll wound you a lot more than that." she warned.
The mishap did not end their journey. The two continued their way deeper into the caves, Ryan needing to stop and think on occasion but never needing to backtrack, until they finally arrived at the one Ryan was hoping to find.
The floor of the cave was almost completely filled by one of the glowing lakes prevalent throughout the region. A wooden dock wound around its edge connecting it to the adjoining caves. Tall grass and other plants grew up from the ground along the outside of the dock, but the lake itself was empty and still. "This is it." Ryan announced. Sallie could have sworn there was just a touch of relief to his words, but she did not call him out on it.
Sallie walked out onto the dock only to find that Ryan was once again not following her. He was looking off at a patch of ground beneath him, he seemed puzzled by it. She walked back over to him. "What are looking at?"
"I think I see something right there," he explained. "Do you see that?"
Sallie looked down at a patch of grass he pointed to and saw nothing. "No?"
"Wait here a second." He told her before jumping off of the dock to the ground below. The wet ground squished beneath his feet as he landed and went over to where he had been looking. He sifted through the grass for a moment before looking back up at her with a grin. Reaching down, he pulled something out from behind it and held it up to her. "Well, would you look at that." he said as he showed it to her.
In his hand he held a picnic basket. Sallie rolled her eyes. "You had all of this planned, didn't you?"
Ryan jumped back up to the dock and took her hand in his. "I can neither confirm nor deny my genius, as that would be biased." He said as they went to the edge of the dock that overlooked the water and sat down with their legs dangling over the side.
"You're humility aside, what made you chose this of all places?" Sallie asked him. They had passed through several others that were similar enough.
"This reminds me something from before I fell down here." Ryan explained. "A long time ago I used to live by a lake that had a dock going around it like this. Every time my friends and I got together we would always end up sitting on that dock in the middle of the night, drinking and just… feeling at peace. Even when I was running away from Undyne I felt at peace here."
"It's probably magic of some sort." Sallie joked.
"It very well might be." Ryan agreed with a chuckle. "But peace was what I was looking for today, for sure." He stared out over the water for a moment before going on. "Sallie, I'm sorry for all of the crap I put you through. If I knew of a better way I would take it in a heartbeat."
Sallie let out a breath and looked at her reflection in the water. "I can't say that I like it but, I'm dating a human in the Underground. I half expected secrets and confusion and frustration, that's part of any relationship really. And I do trust you, Ryan, and will continue to trust you." She reached over and put her hand on top of his. "Was this all for an apology?"
Ryan rocked his head to the side as if he had to think about it. "No, not entirely." He admitted.
"Well, then why?"
"Why don't I tell you after we eat?"
Slightly confused but willing to go along with it, he opened up the basket and began to lay out the contents between them. The last thing she pulled out on made her more confused. "I think you dropped your phone in here." She said, holding out the black rectangle for him.
"Nope, it's not my phone." He said, pulling his phone out of his pocket to show her.
She looked at the rectangle, confused. "Then whose…?"
"Happy birthday." He said and Sallie looked back up to him.
The rabbit monster struggled to find words for a moment. "How did you…?"
"Did you think your mom would let me forget?" he said before she could finish.
"When did you…?"
"What, did you think we did nothing but watch TV at the lab every day?" He winked at her. "And before you ask, yes, that was what I was keeping a secret."
Sallie looked at the phone in disbelief. "It has all of the music that mine has on it. I made sure that was priority number one." He explained.
Sallie could not even begin to wrap her head around how happy she felt, not just for the gift but for everything that Ryan had done. She had not even told him her birthday to try to make up for forcing him into his own, and yet. Once more, she was reminded of why she had made the choice to be with him, of why she put up with all of the struggle and the headaches. It was for moments like this when he made her feel like the happiest person in this world.
"Ryan, I…" At that moment, Sallie realized something. He had been back for months and she had not told him she loved him yet. She had said it to the whole town in near hysterics, but she had yet to tell the one person that really mattered. How could that have slipped her notice? She had spent weeks questioning whether he felt the same when he did not even know how she felt. Surely he knew though. No, she had to say it, or else she'd never know for sure. "I love you."
The words came out with a quiver and she hated herself for it. Ryan looked her in the eye and, for a moment, his shock was plain. She held his gaze and soon she saw his shock melt away as he became sure she was serious. Then she could not tell how he was felt. She almost began to worry until his lips were suddenly pressed against hers. The unexpectedness of it nearly made her pull away, but Ryan's hand was behind her head before she could and he held her there. They seemed to stay like that forever, and when Ryan finally pulled away it did not feel like it lasted nearly long enough. "I love you too." He told her.
The words were barely out of his mouth before Sallie's was pressed up against it once more. She moved closer to wrap her arms around him, knocking over the contents of their picnic in the process; she hardly noticed.
The snow had been right. Things were going to get better after all.
.
While Ryan was off gallivanting with his girlfriend, Undyne decided it was a good time to check up on Alphys without his interference. The captain knocked on the door to lab and tried to put up with the heat for just a few moments longer. There was no answer; she was kind of getting sick of that.
Reaching out, she ran her hand along the wall around the door. It was cool despite the heat around it. After a moment, she picked a spot, pulled her hand back, and jammed it straight through the metal of the wall. Pulling her hand back out, she brought several wires with her which she tugged until they ripped apart in a shower of sparks. The door slid open a second later and she stepped inside.
The lights were off. Undyne clapped her hands and they came on all at once. The door slid shut behind her and she gave a satisfied nod. "Alphys!" she shouted, "It's me! I'm here for my piano!" There was no response. The laboratory was big, and there was any matter of rooms the doctor could be cooped up in, but she had always seemed to hear her before. Where could she be?
Before she started looking, her eyes went to the enormous monitor Alphys had set up in the main room. Unlike the usual camera feeds it displayed, lines of green text flew up a black screen faster than she could read them. In one corner there was a model of a cube. Its sides would periodically light up in patches of color as it slowly rotated on the screen.
A door opened behind her and she turned away from the screen. Alphys stepped into the room and jumped as she saw Undyne. "There you are!" The guardswoman exclaimed, practically running up to her. "Where were you?"
"Me? Oh, I was just… in the bathroom." Alphys pointed at the door behind her.
"Was that always a bathroom?" Undyne asked as she looked to where the other monster pointed.
"Of course, what else would it be?" Alphys said nervously.
Undyne thought of questioning it for a moment, but she knew Alphys found some of the strangest things embarrassing, so she let it lie. "What're you doing over here?" She asked instead, going back to the monitor. Talking about her science always got Alphys to open up.
"Running through one last set of tests on your training room." Alphys explained. "What I learned from working on Ryan's phone was a big help, just like I thought."
"Why's it all lighting up like that?" She asked next, pointing to the spinning cube.
"Because I realized I was presented with a rare opportunity. Magical energy has always been incredibly hard to quantify after it has been made into a spell. Of course we know that there's a loss, but that doesn't really tell us enough. How much of a loss is there? Is the loss different for different spells? With this room, and thanks to Ryan's ability that you told me about, I can measure the in and out of his spells just about as accurately as anyone could I think using the isolated magical field that the room creates."
Undyne nodded in understanding. "You're trying to see if there's any sort of set ratio between magic in and magic out." She summarized. "If there is, then we'd know exactly how much energy we'd need for practically any spell beforehand. There'd be no waste, especially in your machines. Pretty useful information." She turned back to Alphys and gave her a thumbs up. "Good thinking, Doc."
Alphys smiled, slightly embarrassed. "At the very least I hoped it would help us avoid… another incident."
Undyne had been half-hoping she would bring that up, it made her next question seem less out of the blue. "Hey, Alphys," she began. "Have you been doing alright lately?"
"Uh, I guess. What do you mean?"
"Well, I mean you've been kind of secluded for a while. Like more so than usual ever since around the time Ryan first showed up. I miss you."
"Oh, I'm sorry." The monster said awkwardly. Work's been… kind of consuming me lately."
"Well, we should hang out more, like we used to before all this craziness started."
The doctor rubbed her hands together nervously. "Yes, we should. It's just…"
"Just what?" Undyne pressed, cocking her head to the side.
"I've just been really busy."
"With what?"
"Nothing, really…" Alphys admitted. "Nothing of significance anyway."
Undyne reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. "Alphys, what's wrong?"
"Nothing more than usual." The doctor sighed. "You wanted the piano, right? It should be done, let me check real quick."
Undyne grabbed the doctor's arm as she turned to go. "Alphys, talk to me."
"That's the problem, there's nothing to talk about."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I haven't done anything!" She shouted. "Do you have any idea how stressful it is being the only one left here?" Alphys shouted. "Most days I feel like the entire Underground is waiting, counting on me to figure out some way to break the barrier. And yet I'm no closer to a solution than when I started. Everything I try is a failure."
The monster took off her glasses and wiped her eyes before continuing. "Asgore used to call every day to ask if I had anything yet. I hated hearing the disappointment in his voice. Now he hasn't called me in forever. I've let him down so many times that he doesn't even bother anymore. Just like I've let down everyone else."
Undyne got down on one knee so she was eye level with the other monster. "Alphys, you haven't let anyone down." She told her. "You need to stop beating yourself up like this. Don't take this the wrong way, but breaking the barrier was not something anyone actually expected to you to accomplish. Yo were given a task that was thought to be impossible from the start. And if your experiments only confirm that suspicion than that's not your fault. And you don't need to feel like you're alone here. You have me, heck you even have Ryan, and we're both willing to help you any way we can."
Alphys's expression only turned more grave as Ryan's name was mentioned. "Actually, Undyne, I wanted to talk to you about him. Do you really trust him to do what he said he would?"
"I have no reason not to, why?" Undyne questioned.
The monster stood back up and let Alphys lead her to a different part of the lab. "He's hiding something from us, from everyone."
"Yeah, and?" Undyne countered. "He's a human. He probably has a few things he'd like to keep to himself in regards to that. I don't see how its anything bad based on how he's behaved so far."
"I wouldn't be so sure." Alphys went on. "Undyne… he has pictures of the queen. I found them on his phone while I was replicating it."
"Pictures of the…" Undyne echoed in disbelief. "How could he…? Why would he…?"
Alphys shook her head in answer. "I don't know, but I sure can't think of anything good."
The two stopped in the hallway neither wanted to break the silence that followed. "Does he know?" Undyne asked next, suddenly very serious.
"No, I didn't tell him."
"Good." Undyne told her. "Keep it to yourself. We'll sit on this for a while and see what happens. I hate to think that you're right about this Alphys, but I can't see anything good about this either."
The two entered a room through a doorway that was larger than most of the rest in the lab and the lights turned on to reveal a grand piano sitting on a circular dais. Several dozen mechanical arms hung immobile above it. "Looks like it's finished." The doctor said. "You remember the route out for something that big right?"
"I do," Undyne told her as she stepped up onto the dais and ran a hand along the polished black surface. "Alphys, back to the other matter, Ryan's not the only one hiding something from me. You are too."
"What do you mean?" The doctor questioned.
"I mean, there are very few monsters that have need for a bathroom, and you're not one of them."
Alphys then looked ready to run away all together. "It… I…" The monster stammered. Then, as she realized she had been caught, her whole body seemed to slump and she turned away from Undyne. "Sometimes I just need a place to be alone." She said finally.
"I thought you said you were sick of being alone."
"Undyne, please…"
The warrior stepped down from the dais and closer to her friend. "I'm sorry, Alphys, I'm not trying to be rude here, I'm just really confused."
"It's complicated…" Alphys muttered.
"Then uncomplicate it!" The monster shouted. "I may not be as smart as you, but I do understand this stuff. But I can't do anything if you won't talk to me!" Undyne realized she was yelling and pressed a hand to her head to calm herself. "How did it get like this between us, Alphys?" She asked the doctor quietly. Silence hung in the air afterward. "Life was a lot easier before humans started showing up down here, wasn't it?" She joked, chuckling dryly. Alphys kept her back turned, still saying nothing. "Alphys, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I've been too busy lately to have time for my best friend."
The doctor shook her head. "That's not your fault." She told her, still with her back to her.
"It is though, and it was both wrong and rude of me. Let me make it up to you. Ryan's off doing… something, let's watch some shows, just us, like we used to."
"I can't." The monster told her. "I still have too much work to do."
"Come on, you can't take a break?" Undyne pressured. "Even though we've seen each other almost every day this past week, I still feel like I've barely spent any time with you at all, and I want my friend back. So what do you say?"
The monster shook her head again. "I'm sorry Undyne, but not this time."
"Why not?" Undyne continued to argue.
Alphys finally turned to the other monster and Undyne saw in her eyes an anger she did not know the doctor was capable of. "Because I don't want that anymore!" she shouted before she could stop herself.
Undyne looked shocked then she stared at the floor. "I see… I guess I'll go then." The monster went back to the dais and lifted the piano over her head and turned to the door.
"Wait, Undyne, that's not-!" The doctor started.
"Best of luck in your research Doc, I'm sure you'll prove yourself wrong sooner than you think. I'll be back with Ryan tomorrow."
The door slid shut behind the monster, leaving Alphys with even more things left unsaid.
Music for this one is Better With Time by Grabbitz.
So, originally, my plan was to try to get another chapter of Chara's story done for next week, but now I think I might do something a bit more… Spook Month-y… I don't know, we'll see how it goes.
Until then, have a good one folks.