Memory
"Alphys. I want to show you something."
The small lizard monster, her lab coat still a few sizes too large and dragging on the ground behind her, scurried to Wing's side immediately.
It had already been several months since Wing found her in the Garbage Dump, a trembling, unwanted child with a knack for assembling gadgets. Several months since he had seen her potential and taken her in as his own.
Alphys had taken to science rapidly–even if it just meant watching Wing do his work in the basement laboratory most of the time. He had grown to find her presence comforting, the eager spark in her eyes only endearing her to him even more.
"Dr. Gaster? What is it?" Even on her tiptoes, Alphys couldn't see the top of the table, and clung to its edge by her claws as she strained upward.
"Here. Let me help you." With the help of blue magic, Wing gently lifted Alphys onto the tabletop where she could see the blueprint he had been working on. "I had a feeling you'd like to see this."
"Wow," his apprentice breathed. Leaning over the sheet, she squinted at the Wingdings heading. "DT… extraction machine?"
"Remember when I told you about souls, and the War of Humans and Monsters?"
"While our souls are made up mostly of magic, and our strength changes based on our will to battle, human souls' main component is a substance called Determination," Alphys repeated dutifully. "It's what makes humans so much stronger than we are. It's why we had to retreat when they attacked us in the war."
"Correct. I'm hypothesizing that the power of Determination can be extracted and harnessed, possibly even to break the barrier–and it's our job to find out how. Of course, all these plans will remain purely theoretical before we obtain a human soul."
"Woah."
The two fell silent for a moment, Alphys watching as Wing continued printing notes in the margins in perfect Wingdings.
"What do you think would happen if a human fell down?" Alphys asked quietly. "What if it was a child? Do you think the King and Queen would kill it?"
Full of questions as his apprentice was, Wing had not been anticipating this particular question.
He thought back to Asgore and Toriel. Their kind hearts and their love for children. He thought of the way they held the newborn prince in their arms, the softness in their eyes. They cared for any monster who came to them. Despite their position of authority–or maybe because of it–the Dreemurrs were so gentle, so full of mercy and compassion.
Even if it was the species that had oppressed them, even if killing it was a step toward the freedom of the Underground… no, Wing wouldn't put it past them to spare a young human. "I don't think they would hurt it," he replied slowly.
Alphys's voice quivered. "Dr. Gaster, if nobody tried to stop you, would… would you?"
That gave him pause.
Would I?
A shudder ran through him as he envisioned it. He imagined standing in front of a human boy, its form identical to his son's if not for the flesh that encased its bones. He imagined Wingdings reflected in the gleam of its terrified eyes. He imagined signing the command that would tear its soul from its body.
The truth was that murder did not sit well with Wing Din Gaster. Something in him recoiled at the idea of simply cutting short another being's existence, human or otherwise.
But for Sans and Alphys? For Helvetica and the second child she now carried? For the monster race?
He remembered that day in Waterfall back when he and his wife were still young lovers, talking about their hopes for the future. She had held his hand and looked back at him so trustingly.
Wing turned to Alphys.
"Yes. I would do what is necessary to save all monsters, even if that meant killing a human child. I would be willing to take one life in exchange for thousands."
I would do what is necessary.
That statement rattled in the back of his skull for the longest time, demanding his attention. It never left him alone, not even after he drew the CORE blueprints; not even after he devised his master plan. It remained with him always, haunting him up until the moment his soul shattered–and for even longer after that.
A year before Wing's final trip to the CORE, extraordinary news spread throughout the Underground: Prince Asriel had discovered a small human girl, lying unconscious on the buttercup bed beneath the hole in Mount Ebott. It was the first time human and monster had made contact in two thousand years.
As Wing had predicted, the royal family showed her mercy. Clad in a new pale green dress, she appeared before the entire monster population as Toriel and Asgore declared her their daughter.
Just like that, the fallen human–the outsider, the enemy of monsterkind, the determined soul–became Princess Chara Dreemurr of the Underground.
Xandre
The floor was matted with dust, but Xandre could make out two sets of footprints leading deeper into the Lab: Alphys and Undyne, without a doubt.
[Should we follow them?]
{For now, stay back a little.}
As he passed it, a small screen mounted to the wall flickered on. Green text ran across its surface.
ENTRY NUMBER ONE
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.
{That sounds like something Wing would say.}
[It does,] Xandre agreed, [but that wouldn't make sense. I don't remember anything about this. It has to be from after Alphys became Royal Scientist.]
{So Asgore wanted her to "unleash the power of the soul"...? Power, as in... Determination? To break the barrier?}
[Whatever she tried, it clearly didn't work.]
{I don't have a good feeling about this.}
ENTRY NUMBER TWO
The barrier is locked by soul power. Unfortunately, this cannot be generated artificially.
Soul power can only be derived from what was once living.
So, to create more, we will use what we have now: the souls of monsters.
ENTRY NUMBER THREE
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 after death.
If only I could make a monster's soul last.
ENTRY NUMBER FIVE
I've done it. Using the blueprints, I've extracted it from the human souls.
I believe this is what gives the souls the power to persist after death.
The will to keep living, the resolve to change fate: "Determination", or DT for short.
To be honest, I never thought I would actually be able to use those blueprints.
Our postulations might lead somewhere after all.
An image of Wing's foster daughter flashed into Xandre's mind unbidden: crouching behind a computer monitor, shivering in the lab coat that was still too big for her, the new Royal Scientist's claws trembled as she tapped letter after letter onto the screen. He could envision her biting her lip and taking in a shaky breath as she wrote. Hiding her terror behind resolute sentences and scientific vocabulary, like her predecessor had.
Determined to save the world, just like he had been.
The apple hadn't fallen far from the tree.
{Aha! Determination.}
[Though I wonder… where's Entry Number Four?]
{Maybe we'll find it later.}
The hallway bent sharply to the right, opening into a large room with a set of elevator doors (Xandre remembered it led to the Dreemurr palace–no use to him for now).
[Which way do we go? Left or right?]
{Judging by those dusty footprints, Undyne and Alphys went right.}
[Okay. Let's poke around this place a little more and go left?]
{If you say so.}
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 DT into them?
If their souls persist after they perish, then... Freedom might be closer than we all thought.
Xandre found himself in a long room with examination tables and sinks on the far side.
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 that I would give them the dust back for the funerals.
People are starting to ask me what's happening. What do I do?
Xandre ran his hand over the first examination table and pulled back, shuddering. [It's still sticky.]
{There is no way that can be right.}
[Something terrible happened down here.]
Adrian
Muffet raised an enormous porcelain teapot above her head, a flood of purple magic pouring out of its spout. Adrian realized that it took the form of spiders, thousands of them cascading in a wriggling mass down toward them. He had just enough time to wonder whether he and Nyssa would fall over, whether they would even be able to breathe, before the wave crashed over them and he saw no more.
It felt as if he were being immersed in some strange mixture of liquid and gas, the "spiders" melting away when they touched him. As if there was some drain in the floor, the purple magic flowed away and disappeared into the corners.
Nyssa's soul was purple now like Adrian's was, except for the white shard that didn't quite seem affected.
Sticky purple threads wound around both of their souls just as spiders–not the real ones surrounding the humans on all sides, but large ones made up of magic–skittered across Muffet's web toward them.
There was nowhere to go but up.
Nyssa
Her heart pounding, Nyssa grabbed the length of silk closest to her and used it to pull herself up the web as Adrian did the same.
The silk was coated with deep purple glue that covered Nyssa's hand where she touched it. She cringed, but had no choice other than to pull herself upward. Her soul hung suspended above her head as she climbed, taunting her.
At first the web was hard to climb, its glue-covered strands slightly rubbery yet unexpectedly firm. The anchor threads were stretched tight from ceiling to floor and wall to wall of Muffet's parlor, edges guarded by hordes of spiders. The sight of them spurred Nyssa on, motivated her to keep forcing herself to climb higher and higher.
The web shook underneath her. She flung a look downward and instantly regretted it: tugging eagerly at the bottom of the web was her pet cupcake monster, its fangs glinting in the low light. The sight of those enormous teeth sent a sickening jolt through Nyssa's body.
She scrambled to climb higher, sweat pouring off her body. The threads were stiff, sticky, and hard to let go of, coating her hands in deep purple glue so thick she couldn't see her soul marks anymore. She could feel it seeping into her boots. The muscles in her arms were burning, Muffet's silk threads binding her soul oppressively tight. She and Adrian would need to act fast.
Muffet's web vibrated again with the touch of a massive foreleg, and another.
Nyssa shrieked.
The monster was beginning to climb after her.
Spider silk dug into Nyssa's fingers where she curled them around it. She could acutely feel her own weight tugging her down into the maw of the beast, countered only by the rapidly failing grip of her hands and feet. Even her own narrow frame was quickly becoming too much for her arm muscles. They burned like they were filling up with acid as she struggled to pull herself up again and again, faster and faster. She clenched her teeth together in an attempt to focus on something besides the pain, but it raced through her entire body, and her heart pounded so hard she could feel her pulse in her own head.
If she let go now, she wouldn't fall, but the glue would keep her in place until Muffet's pet caught up. Its ponderous body slowed it down, but not nearly enough.
Nyssa's hand closed around a different type of thread, not sticky this time, and she nearly rejoiced for the ease of movement before realizing there was no glue to hold her in place if she slipped. She tightened her grip on the slick thread and reached up for the next one, her entire body trembling with the effort.
Muffet's pet licked its chops.
Adrian was still climbing the sticky section of the web, struggling to disentangle himself when suddenly he lost his grip. Without control over where he was going, his entire body fell into the web, the sticky strands completely covering his left side.
Sensing the vibrations new prey sent across the web, Muffet's pet scuttled eagerly toward where Adrian was trapped.
"Adrian!" Nyssa cried.
Her friend, too exhausted for words, twisted his head to look at her, desperation flashing in his eyes as the cupcake monster prodded his leg with its forelimbs. Losing interest almost immediately, the monster scaled the web toward Adrian's soul, wrapped up some distance above his head.
"Hey!" Nyssa yelled. "Let him go!"
While her pet ignored Nyssa, Muffet herself perched in the center of her own web a distance away. She was watching the scene with an amused smile on her face. "Let him go? Oh, don't be so silly. Your souls will make the spiders very happy. After all, the person who warned us about you offered me a lot of money for you two. Oh, he was so handsome, with shining hair and such a sweet smile… ahuhuhu… it's strange, but I swear I saw him in the shadows… changing shape?"
Nyssa racked her brains and Wing's memories, but she found nobody resembling the stunning stranger Muffet had described.
That didn't matter right now, anyway.
As quickly as she could manage, she forced herself to climb across the web toward Adrian, almost unable to feel her hands repeatedly grasping the silk strands.
"I'm comi-"
In Nyssa's haste, she misstepped, and everything happened at once.
The sole of her boot slipped off the slick strand of silk. Nyssa's hands were wrenched off the strand she had been clutching. Other foot still caught in the web, she fell until she was entangled in an awkward sideways position.
In a matter of seconds she, too, had become hopelessly trapped.
Biting back a scream, she thrashed against her bonds. What was I even planning to do? Swoop in like a hero and rescue him? With what, my magic?
Nyssa was bound almost like a marionette puppet, her arms twisted uncomfortably above her head. Hands immobilized, soul marks flaring uselessly as the air became clouded with glowing symbols, she raged against Wing's utterly simple and utterly infuriating weakness. After all, no amount of Wingdings would be of service to her if she couldn't sign to control it.
You're being so helpful right now, Nyssa.
The web trembled as Muffet's pet, having taken notice of her entrapment, climbed towards her.
"Get lost!" she yelled at it, kicking at its face even as she knew how hopeless it was. "Get away from me and Adrian!"
"Why so angry, dearie?" Muffet cooed. "He's just hungry~"
The monster crouched over her, its nightmarish teeth inches from her blond ponytail, before it stretched toward her soul.
"Don't you d-"
It nibbled at the white third, and agony tore through Nyssa's body. She couldn't help it now; she let her screams out, feeling its jaws close on the core of her being. Faintly, she realized that even though it had bitten down, the teeth hadn't sunk in. Her HP and DEF were too high–for now.
It gnawed on Nyssa's soul a few times before looking over toward Muffet and letting out a low, frustrated growl.
"What is it, my pet?" Muffet cocked her head. "It's a little tough? Don't worry, we have time. Save a piece for me, okay?"
Nyssa ground her teeth, feeling ready to black out. The unusually high stats Wing's soul had given her were no consolation if she couldn't defend herself. She had no doubt Muffet's pet could eat away slowly but surely at her 4444 HP until it was gone.
Xandre
Xandre walked farther into the examination room, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling. Nothing about this place was right.
Whatever had taken place down here, it had been terrifying enough, shameful enough, to make Alphys retreat back into herself. To bring out a part of her that hadn't emerged since Wing first found her as a child, trembling and helpless, left in the Garbage Dump to die.
{Do you think Alphys could've left anything interesting in this room? Anything we could use?}
[It's worth a look.]
Xandre wandered over to the sinks. There were no compartments underneath them, and they had been cemented to the wall. If they were hiding anything, it was probably in the water. Xandre twisted the knobs on the first two sinks. Clear, flowing water. When he attempted to turn on the third tap, though, nothing came out.
[Maybe there's something stuck inside?]
Xandre bent over to look at the tap, but before he could reach over to loosen it, something did start flowing out. It definitely wasn't water; it was white and had the consistency of slime. Xandre backed away a few steps, watching, stunned, as it overfilled the basin and began seeping out.
{Xandre, it's a sink. Turn it off!}
[Oh, yeah, of course.]
He had not taken a step toward the sink before the slime molded itself into the shape of a face.
{What the hell is that?}
Xandre's eyes widened, and his breath began coming faster and faster in his chest as he stumbled over his own feet trying to back away as quickly as he possibly could–
Grotesque forms erupted from the slime, towering out of the sink. Warped laughter rang through the small room.
Xandre let out a strangled cry as the melted creatures began to slither across the tiled ground toward him.
What even were they?
The things were utterly unrecognizable, some hideous composite of disparate monster parts crudely melded together: a spiked tail, eight blinking eyes, a gaping mouth. They dragged their disfigured bodies across the tile, white slime sloughing off them as they moved.
Xandre scrambled backward, turning to make a run for the door, when something slimy curled around his ankle. He sprawled across the ground ungracefully, winded, as the disgusting creatures caught up to him. At this point he could smell them, their reek of decay and battery acid invading his nostrils.
"Come join the fun," distorted voices drawled from every direction. "You'll be with us shortly."
He twisted around and drew his knife, plunging it into the body of the nearest abomination so he could scramble to his feet. It made him gag - underneath the layer of slime, even its flesh wasn't entirely solid, and deep red liquid oozed from the wound. The sight of it made his skin crawl. When Xandre slaughtered monsters before, there had been no blood, only dust. But this wasn't blood, either. This liquid was slightly thicker, and almost seemed to possess a red glow of its own in the darkened room.
Xandre grunted with the effort of pulling his knife back out. It emerged coated in a viscous white substance, marbled with red. Then–to Xandre's astonishment–the "blood" in the creature's wound congealed right before his eyes, turning into white slime.
"Nope, absorbed... I'm lovin' it!" the creature cackled.
[It... heals itself?]
Red and white trickled through the cracks between the deep green tiles, puddling at a dent in the floor.
{Wait–it's so obvious! Xandre, I could recognize that red color anywhere. It was the color of my soul.}
[What?]
{Don't you see? Those... those things, monsters, animals, whatever they are. They're literally bleeding Determination!}
It took a while before the meaning of Chara's words registered. Of course! The liquid that pooled around him now was the will to live, the stuff of human souls. [Their bodies are a source of DT! And I don't even have to extract it in any special way. I'll need a container, though.]
Xandre shoved the creatures off long enough for him to fumble in his pack. He closed his hand around the first thing he found, pulling it out. It was a small jar of Sea Tea he had stolen from Gerson's shop.
[Perfect!]
Struggling a few times because of the slime on his hand, Xandre screwed the jar open and downed its contents. A buzz of energy shot through his veins immediately, lending a burst of speed to his movements and his counterattacks. The creatures were disgusting, and there were many of them, but they were slow. With renewed vigor, Xandre hacked at the creatures faster than they could regenerate. One jumped up and swung its claw at his eye, and Xandre thrust his knife towards it. The blade sunk in to its hilt, splattering hot, sticky Determination all over his face. He grimaced, blinking it out of his eye. More DT gushed across the tiled floor and all over his clothes.
{Mm... too bad I can't be here to get all that Determination off you myself, if you catch my drift~}
Xandre's face flushed. [C-Chara!]
{Can't afford to get... distracted?}
[Ah… Chara, seriously...!]
No matter how many blows he dealt, the things just wouldn't die. Hacked to bits and pieces, they continued slogging toward him through their own slime and DT, individual parts writhing within them of their own accord. Although it made him want to throw up, the only way to collect DT was from their moving bodies.
It was as if his knife was a thousand places at once, a length of silver slashing the air in half before sinking into flesh that was no longer really flesh.
Drop by drop, the creatures' spilled DT began to fill the jar.
Hello everyone. That's right, I'm still active!
The chapter title is a reference to one of Memoryhead's dialogue lines. The True Lab/Royal Scientist story arc is actually my favorite in the Undertale narrative (though with such an intricate and expertly crafted backstory it's hard to choose)... too bad Xandre is just slicing his way through it all now. The True Lab is one of the best parts of the True Pacifist route, in my opinion.
I'm back after almost a month of absence. So much for doing more over the summer, I'm sorry. Real life got in the way. (At least this is a pretty long chapter with plenty of content... one of my longest yet, if not THE longest.)
School is starting in about two weeks. I don't know how much I'll be able to keep up then, but as usual, you can rest assured that I won't stop writing until this story is finished.
Thanks for reading!
