If the giant neon sign flashing "Welcome to the Hotlands" didn't hint to the new area, the lava pits below and the heat creating sweat on the mid of your back sure did.

The cool temperatures of Waterfall were completely gone and you felt like you and Frisk had been teleported to a completely new biome once again. From freezing, to lukewarm and damp, to blazing hot. In your minds map it was such a short distance, though it didn't feel short to your aching legs, it amazed you that so much was in a simple cavern under Mt. Ebott.

"Her place is just up ahead." Frisk signs once you look down to them. You smile and nod, taking notice that their once damp clothes had dried in the heat of Hot Lands. So had yours. You hope the sudden change from soggy from cold water to soggy from sweat wouldn't spark a cold in either of you.

"So...Alphys huh?" You say once you and the kid come face to face with an oddly white and large building. It stood out greatly compared to the red and oranges of the land surrounding it. "Undyne said she was the...Royal Scientist?"

"She works for Asgore...I think?" Frisk signs, then snickers. It's raspy and quiet. Something that, when you were growing up, bothered you, but now it was as normal as the habit of signing while you spoke.

Coming upon the lab that the Alphys character supposedly worked - lived - in looked out of place. It was giant, much bigger than you were expecting. Though… You can't say you're that surprised by the size. She was a royal scientist after all. However the giant white and pristine building in midst of all the dark red and burning orange seemed like the building was cut and pasted into the area.

You ignore the armored fellows blocking off the only other path that didn't lead to the lab. If only because Frisk signed that you two would handle them later. And though if anyone else told you those words you'd find them hauntingly foreboding, you knew that Frisk probably meant you'd have a friendly chat to get them to move in the future.

The lab doors open automatically when you and the kid get close. The black void twists something in your gut, a warning, but Frisk walks on in and you of course immediately follow.

The inside is just as dark, making you reach blindly forward to grab Frisks shoulder to make sure they were still close. When your eyes adjust they immediately catch a glowing screen to your left. It wasn't blinding, but it definitely cast a soft hue of blue across the scare objects around it. You notice a bit late that the sounds of the churning lava and the odd hollow emptiness had immediately disappeared to be replaced by mechanical whirling and metal sliding against metal. It was almost as if your ears had felt cupped while being outside and they had popped as soon as you entered.

Frisk still marches happily forward, replacing their shoulder with their small hand to continue to drag you on, as if to reassure you nothing was going to happen in the dark room.

Now in front of the glowing screen you realize it's a live video feed of you and Frisk. The TV was split in two, one completely focused on your head, the other on your sibling's. You glance around, wanting to know how the feed worked, but immediately give up to instead check on your appearance.

Tired, disheveled, and slightly dead looking. All the worry and anxiety you had felt for Frisk over the months they had been missing before they restarted to retrieve you showed, even if they "never happened". Purple bruises hung under your eyes, as if life had beaten you instead of worry and lack of sleep. You looked like you had just woken up from a sleepless coma with the way your hair looked and how your face had paled. Apart from the naturally caused "wounds", you had a couple of real ones that shined. A bruise on your cheek bone, a couple of cuts that fled into your hairline, and when had you fallen into the dirt? Or...was that another bruise? As you licked your fingers and rubbed at the odd mark on your forehead, Frisk tugs at your free hand to pull you away. You follow, but still push at the dirt(?) stain on head.

The light from the screen casted on a cluttered large desk next to it. You can make out stacks of books and scattered papers, maybe a computer hidden in the middle of it, but the details are lost on you. Frisk pulls you past it and then, abruptly, stops. If it wasn't for the way their footsteps echoed in the lab you would've run into them. Instead you stopped too, waiting for whatever they were waiting for.

That, or to give you some sort of sign - not ASL - of what they were thinking.

The dark light wouldn't let you two communicate. You felt bad, since just by the lights being lowered a little Frisk was rendered silent. It's why they had you get them so many nightlights in their room back home. The dark scared them not because of what was in it, but because of how it stole Frisk's "voice".

You hear another automatic door slide open and though it was dark the movement immediately catches your eyes and you pull Frisk back closer to your body. Just as your free hand goes up to grab at your bat, the lights turn on and you're blinded.

It takes you a second to flutter your lids and clear your vision, and when it does you're faced with...an odd sight.

Before you stands a startled and almost terrified looking...Dinosaur? Large lizard? Whatever they were, they briefly reminded you of a character on that old show Barney and you can't help but feel your guard slip.

"Oh." They breathed finally. It was more of the vocalized end of a short gasp. "My god." The nasally voice, which was obviously female at this point, squeaked. "I didn't expect you guys to show up so soon!"

You didn't know reptiles could flush until her yellow face erupted with vermilion hues that crept down into the folds of her starched white lab coat.

"I-I haven't showered, I'm barely dressed, it's all messy, and-" Her anxiety driven rambling comes to a halt when her eyes flicker up to meet yours. The vermilion turns sunset red and she shakily fixes her round glasses. "H-H-Hiya!" She blurts. "I'm D-Dr. Alphys. I'm Asgore's royal scientist!"

Then she adverts her eyes, hands lowering to her middle as she clicked her claws together. "B-b-but, ahhhh, I'm not one of the "bad guys"!" Her claws click faster. "Actually, since you two stepped out of the ruins, I've, um, been "observing" your journey through my console." You assume she's referring to the TV with your mug plastered across it. "Your fights...Your friendships...Your sibling bonding...Everything!" She seems to go a bit dreamy. "I was originally going to stop you, but… Watching someone on a screen really makes you root for them. S-so, ahhh, now I want to help you!"

You're hesitant to believe her, but her nervous stutters and trembling "ums" are quickly making you defenseless. There's no way this was an act. No way. She was literally shimmering with sweat by being in your presence. It could've all been some elaborate trap but… Seeing as so far not a single a soul in the Underground could really handle lying, or being anything but genuinely nice people, you had a bubble of hope that Alphys was the same.

"Using my knowledge," she continued, "I can easily guide you through Hotland! I know a way right to Asgore's castle, no problem!" She looks confident, actually meeting your eyes for the second time since she turned on the lights. Asgore's "castle" peaks your interest. You want to ask but since the woman was on a roll, her words actually coming out pretty smoothly now compared to when she first stared, you decide to wait until she's gotten all of her thoughts out of her.

"Well." Her lips purse and her eyes flicker around. "Actually, umm, there's just a tiny issue. First."

The way she looks down tells you immediately that this "tiny issue" was anything but. You had a little sibling. You knew the guilty look anywhere.

"A long time ago, I made a robot named Mettaton. Originally, I built him to be an entertainment robot. Uh, you know, like a robotic TV star or something. Anyway, recently I decided to make him more useful. You know, just some small practical adjustments."

Your eyes narrow at the wording.

"Like..as uh...Anti...Anti-human combat features?"

This time you purse your lips and stare at her. She laughs nervously.

"Of c-course, when I saw you coming, I immediately decided… I have to remove those features!"

"That'd be nice." You finally say. She startles at the sound of your voice and though she had gone back to her original color, she goes sunset red all over again.

"Right! Yes!" She then deflates and crumbles in on herself. "Unfortunately, I may have made a teensy mistake while doing so… And now...um… Now he's an unstoppable killing machine with a thirst for human blood?"

Your palm connects with your face and drags up to pull at your hair.

You note this is why you look so disgruntled.

Alphys's nervous laughter quickly tumbles down a flight of stairs and she wraps her arms around each other.

"But, umm, hopefully we won't run into him!"

"I hope so too." You say, brain already picking up speed as you tried to think up ways of defeating a human hungry robot.

Robots didn't have emotions, because they were wires and circuits, so it wasn't like you could just chat it up like Frisk had you doing for just about everyone else. You're also pretty sure a wooden, half broken bat that had chunks missing from spears, wouldn't do much to metal. Specially to a robot that a royal scientist had made. You weren't big on titles, but you're pretty sure Alphys's meant she was the best of the best. She wasn't going to make some robot that could be destroyed by a couple good hits of a bat. Specially if it was reprogrammed to destroy a human that always carried a bat.

You go to ask Alphys if there's anything else you might need to know about the robot that's out to get you and your sibling…

...But there's a rumble.

It shakes the lab.

There's suddenly a distant, grinding metal noise that was quickly becoming louder.

"Did you hear something?" Alphys slowly looks around, a hopefully oblivious look scrawled on her profusely sweating features. You swing your hurt arm in front of Frisk, pulling them back from the wall to your left, where the noise seemed to be headed.

You could only assume the worst.

The building shakes harder and you hope that it's only an earthquake. Yet when you see Alphys's face crumble and she herself start away from the wall you'd backed away from, your hope dashes.

You were never a very hope-centered person anyway.

"OH YESS-! Welcome, beauties..." The voice is metallic, crisp, and breaks through the wall before there's a bright light of explosion.

You throw yourself in front of Frisk, hissing in pain as your cut up side stretches. You feel a couple pieces of wall hit and then scatter across you back, along with Frisk's small hands curling into the front of your shirt in obvious worry.

The power goes out with a loud noise, like it was powering down. You squeeze Frisk in reassurance before standing, brandishing your bat, and turning one eighty. You can't see, but you can hear something lumbering close.

A spotlight flickers on. Your mind, sluggish from the noise of the explosion, doesn't pause to wonder where the rectangular, one wheeled box got it's light.

Because that's what was "standing" in front of you. A grey box shaped robot with a grid of lights flashing on the upper half, and knobs and dials littering the bottom. It was only upright by a single wheel under it. The object had two hands that extended from it's body with bending pipe-like extensions. One of the mitts held a microphone.

"To today's quiz show!" It shouted, the panel of lights flickering with a bright boxy "M".

Strobes descend and a colorful light show dances across the lab. A fake audience applauds from a speaker on the robots left, upbeat "show" music playing from the one on the right. Even a giant glowing panel with the words "Game Show" written in stereotypical "70's" font lowers from somewhere above your head.

This was actually..kind of cool? Your mouth goes against your instincts, that were screaming flight or fight, and stretches into a smile.

"Oh boy!" The robot hisses, a fake tune of programmed excitement playing in his voice. "I can already tell it's gonna be a great show! Everyone give a big hand for our wonderful contestants!"

Rainbow confetti rains down. Your eyes are stolen from the robot to watch the pieces fall onto Frisk's head.

"Never played before, gorgeous?" You're not sure who he's referring to. "No problem! It's simple! There's only one rule! Answer correctly…" The song picks up and sounds extra cheerful and exciting. "Or you die!" You flinch, head whipping back around to eye the metal box. You raise your bat in defense just as the robots song engulfs your ears and a painful tug alerts you your soul is being dragged into battle.

Mettaton… Attacks?

"Is this...a fight?" You asks breathlessly as the bot titters before you, next to a nervous Alphys. Frisk goes to your side, hand coming up to cover yours that gripped tightly at your bat.

"Let's start with an easy one!" The robot pulls out a sheet of paper from nowhere and clears his non-existent throat. "What's the prize for answering correctly?"

He snaps his fingers and the strobe lights from earlier shift to concentrate their light in front of you. Letter choices appear and you squint. There's a timer there too, but Frisk was already tugging at your bat to point it to the fourth option. A crowd cheers in your ear and party poppers go off.

"Right! Sounds like you get it!"

"I really don't!" You say, nerves on edge as you wait for something to come flying at your floating green heart. The little thing sat on the end of your bat that Frisk was helping you direct. Being in a game show right after dealing with fast flying spears was anything but a breath of fresh air.

Wait… Your soul wasn't looking too good. You hadn't noticed until now, until it sat a foot away from you, but your green heart looked...Cracked? It looked as beaten up as you felt. White lines splattered across it's pulsing form, the edges crumbling a bit as if someone had grabbed it and picked at it's side. The red one next to it, the one you had learned a while ago was Frisk's, was cheerfully bobbing next to your recumbent one, not a speck of harm denting it's body.

You're glad.

"Here's your terrific prize!" The answer choices fizzle out to be replaced by new ones. "What's the king's full name?" Your eyes quickly snap over all the option and you feel a small puff of laughter almost escape.

There was "Lord Fluffybuns", "Fuzzy Pushover", "Asgore Dreemurr", and "Dr. Friendship". You don't needs Frisk's direction to swivel the bat down to option "C". You kind of hoped to find out the king's name was truly "lord fluffybuns". You file the name away for later when you face the king.

The robot congratulates you again and you breathe in, finally settling down. This… wasn't too hard. You could do this.

"Enough about you. Let's talk about me! What are robots made of?"

Frisk immediately moves you towards option B, "Metal and Magic". It's the only one that mentioned "metal", so it made the most sense, you reason.

"Too easy for you, huh?" Mettaton coos before immediately moving on. He takes a large breath - you're positive for show since he was a robot - and then…

"Two trains, train A and train B, simultaneously departs station A and station B. Station A and station B are 252.5 miles apart from each other. Train B is moving at 124.7mph towards station B, and train B is moving at 253.5mph towards station A. If both trains departed at 10:00am and it is now 10:00, how much longer until both trains pass each other?"

Of course.

Of course the murderous robot was going to lead with easy questions and then drop this problem with only thirty seconds to solve it. You had already forgotten any and all information that was given in the verbal recount and now you just looked to Frisk, who was frozen with confusion.

Nervously you glance to Alphys, the scientist and robot's creator.

Flitting her eyes to Mettaton she slowly moves her hands. She creates the letter "D" with her fingers. You're surprised by how she does it, but quickly point your heart towards the option. You mentally note to teach her how to fingerspell in ASL some point in the future as a sign of gratitude. Hopefully, since she was a scientist and all, she'd enjoy the new knowledge.

This time when Mettaton congratulates you, you hear honest disbelief and annoyance sliding under his robotic tone. It unnerves you how human that sound is.

"Don't "count" on your victory… How many flies are in this jar?"

You try not to enjoy the pun too much.

You enjoy it a lot.

Alphys bends her fingers to awkwardly make an "A".

"You're so lucky today!" The way he emphasizes the word "lucky" makes you think he doesn't think it's only your good-karma coming back to help you. "Let's play a memory game. What monster is this?"

The lights shift to show a fourth of a face that reminds you of a frog. You snort, wondering why the question was suddenly jumping back to be easy. Just when you move your bat to point your fragile soul to letter "A", "Froggit", do you notice that Alphys, for some reason, was making the letter "D".

"Wrong!"

You scream when the electricity hits you.

It only lasts for a second or two, but in those brief moments you felt the sharp metallic heat run through every single vein in your entire body.

Your mind goes blank and your mouth feels numb when the pain stops. It doesn't really stop, just doesn't feel like your blood's boiling anymore.

You taste bile rising in the back of your throat.

Frisk makes a raspy noise, clawing at your shirt so that you'll look at them so that they can sign. When you do, their face shows a mixture of fear and worry and you notice your soul pulse and then break a bit more out of the corner of your eye.

"Are you okay?" They quickly ask after forcing their grip away from you so they could sign. They didn't appear to want to let go.

"Yeah." You dumbly say, not able to form full thoughts just yet.

"Crying's against the rules!" Mettaton speaks up, holding his paper higher to queue that he was moving on.

You're just glad it wasn't electrocution. You're also glad that you were struck, rather than both you and Frisk. You worry that the next one you get wrong will result in Frisk getting zapped, though.

"Would you smooch a ghost?" The robot asked.

All answer said "Heck yeah".

The timer was counting up.

Alphys just narrowed her eyes at Mettaton for a beat before looking to you and mouthing "are you okay". Which you replied with a slow nod and exasperated smile, before pointing to a random letter.

The rest of the game continues for a handful of questions. Every time, no matter what your gut was telling you, you checked with Alphys before choosing. You had to be extra careful, not knowing if your sibling would be targeted.

When a question pops up about some simulator game called "Mew Mew Kissy Cutie", Alphys bursts with excitement and vocally starts explaining her answer. Her excited ramble quietly ceases when she realizes her mistake.

"Alphys, Alphys, Alphys… You aren't helping our contestant, are you?" The voice is condescending and the woman tries to quickly shake her head, smiling guilty. "Ooooooh! You should have told me!" The robotic tune is coated with dripping venom. "I'll ask a question… You'll be sure to know the answer to!" The robot then whirls around to you. You're sure if he had a face his smile would've been overly sugary and dangerous. "Who, contestant, does Dr. Alphys have a crush on?"

Oh.

Low blow.

There were four options set in front of you. The timer doesn't even drop from the maximum thirty before Frisk forcefully, and mildly violently, smashes your bat, which was still in your hand, towards option "A", "Undyne".

"See, Alphys?" The scientist blushes so hard you can no longer see a spot of yellow on her. Her hands go up to try and hide herself. "I told you it was obvious. Even the humans figured it out."

"Really?" You can't help but ask. If Undyne had never mentioned Alphys in the first place, you wouldn't have ever thought the two had met.

"Yes." Sighed Mettaton. "She scrawls her name in the margins of her notes. She names programming variables after her. She even writes stories of them together… Sharing a domestic life." Then the bot laughs. "Probability of crush: 101 percent. Margin of error: One percent." The robot teases through his snickering.

Actually teases.

You're starting to wonder if there's a man hidden in the metal box.

...Or the quiz show was actually right about robots in the Underground being built out of magic and metal. Maybe he was… sentient.

That did little to ease your nerves, but it did help to quench your curious mind. Now you needed about a hundred other questions answered and your head would finally be clear.

"Well, well, well. With Dr. Alphys helping you… The show has no dramatic tension! We can't go on like this! But. But! This was just the pilot episode! Next up, more drama! More romance! More bloodshed! Until next time, Darlings!"

The robots emits a loud buzzing noise as it sinks to the floor, pulling in the wheels and it's two arms. The noise gets louder until it squeaks and turns into the sound of an airplane taking off. Mettaton lifts up, jet firing off from under him, and literally flies into the ceiling. You jump back, pulling Frisk with you out of the way of the debris that comes falling down.

There's a moment of awkward silence.

"Well that was certainly something." Alphys says. You give her a look, but can't fault her for the description. Mettaton was certainly...something. Frisk scurries away from your arms, then, deciding to go off towards the robot shaped hole in the lab. You, instead, head over to Alphys, stepping over chunks of ceiling as you go.

"Dr. Alphys," You begin slowly, but she flinches and quickly waves her hands around.

"J-J-Just Alphys!" She all but squeaks. You slowly nod.

"Right. Then, Alphys, about that last question-"

"He wasn't s-supposed to ask that one." She interrupts again with a hurried answer.

"Sorry." You say, not sure how else to respond. "That he asked that. It's not that obvious, you know."

"...It's not?" She asks quietly, but hopefully. You smile and shake your head.

"It's not." Then, a thought hits you. "Do you think I could get your phone number?... Alphys? Hey, Alphys?"

The woman stopped breathing; for a moment you think she's actually passed out standing up. Frisk comes padding back over to wave their hand comically in front of the scientists face.

"My….Phone number…." She finally says, so quiet that you lean in a bit to see if you can catch anything else.

"Yeah!" Grinning, you beam down at her. "Then, you know, if we need help or run into Mettaton again, we can call you!" It made sense, after all. She was a scientist and the creator of the metal and magic Mettaton. She was a genius in your book and you'd feel better if she was only a call away.

Gingerly, you slide the backpack off your shoulders. The wound on your side hisses when you displace the weight on your shoulder but you suck in a breath in hopes to not make a noise. Frisk is quick to dive their little hands into the bag, fishing around for the old phone Toriel had given you both.

When it's pulled out, Alphys's face drops.

"Wh… Where'd you get that phone?!" It's the loudest thing Alphys had said to you yet. "It's ancient! It doesn't even have texting."

You glance down at the grey box. You had noticed, when Toriel had first handed it to you and Frisk in the ruins, that it was old. You didn't really have a phone back home, seeing as how you could barely pay the bills for the house, but you had seen commercials and other other people around your college campus with far superior versions. But, like back then, you didn't really see a need.

"W-wait a second, please!" She swipes the old block of phone from Frisk's hands and scurries off to her desk. Less than a minute later she's handing you another block, but it's lit up with new lights and has a sleek touch screen. "It can do texting, items, it's got a key chain… I even signed you up for the underground's no.1 social network!" She says that last bit more to you. "Now," She glance between you and your siblings. "We're officially friends!" She giggles excitedly.

The happy laugh quickly dies though and her expression becomes tight. She glances nervous between you and Frisk and then bites her bottom lip.

"Frisk?" Alphys suddenly says, twiddling her small...fingers. "I-I think an annoying dog was let l-loose in my lab-" The small child perks up, looking a bit too excited for your taste. "C-could you track it down for me?" The child jerks their head in a nod and then scrambles to run towards one of the escalator type stairs. You watch the child and then send Alphys a confused look.

"Is there something you want to talk about doc- A-Alphys?" You stumble through your words nervously. Alphys gives a small, strained smile of something close to reassurance.

"Y-You know about your...Your soul, right?" You blink, glancing down to your chest as if you'd be able to see the green blurb floating.

"Uh, kinda?" You reply honestly. "I know it comes out when I'm in a...fight. It's also a different color than Frisk's." You palm the back of your neck, going a little red at how little you actually knew. Usually you're pretty on top of getting information about things you didn't understand. Since coming to the underground, though, you'd grown used to just accepting the oddities that came, sometimes literally, jumping out at you. Now standing in front of a scientist (doctor?) you felt a little silly.

"Y-yes." Alphys says, looking more worried than before. She starts sweating as she hurries to her desk to push her oversized rolling chair back to you. She pulls at your arm until you sit down on the cushion seat. "I-it also shows how much a monster- or human i-in your case, is hurt." She pulls out a notepad from her lab coat and begins scribbling something down.

"How hurt?" You echo, your hand snapping up to twist in your shirt in from of your heart. "What do you mean?"

"Ha-have you eaten a-any of the food here?"

"What? Yeah I-"

"B-but nothing was healed, right?"

"Hold on-"

"Of course it wouldn't." She happily scribbles more and you frown. Whatever she was saying, or now muttering under her breath, made no sense to you. However, having the scientist walk around you, eyeing your chest as if she could see your soul, made you nervous. Something was wrong. Something with you was wrong.

You wish that when thinking that you were a bit more surprised.

Your soul lurches out of you chest and you flinch at the pain. You don't remember your soul hurting when a fight started, but the feeling was weird, crawling around your chest and then even deeper, and left you shaking.

Looking around for whoever was trying to fight you, you only see a shifty eyed Alphys.

"S-sorry!" She blurts. "It was the only way to see…" She trails off when he eyes flicker to your heart. You're about to say it's fine but your eyes also see your heart-soul and your heart, your real one (this was getting confusing), skips a violent beat.

Your little soul was practically being held together by a thread. The poor thing hung lower than your chest height and was continuously trembling. The once whole "heart" shaped soul was now crumbling. Green dust floated around it like a planet rings, some chunks sprinkled in. It pulsed slowly, the green lights like a slow, dying, heartbeat.

You definitely don't remember it looking like this.

"This is…" Alphys says slowly, sounding calm, for once. "Horrible!" She screams, throwing her hands up. You watch as she beings panicking, her pacing speeding up to the point it almost looks like she's running. "N-Not good...N-Not good!"

Slipping out of the rolling chair, you reach for your soul. It immediately swerves, avoiding your palm. You frown at it.

"Y-You shou-shouldn't be standing!" Alphys says, scooping up your outstretched hand to goad you back to your seat. "How are you st-standing?" She mutters under her breath, eyes racking over you as she nudges you back into the chair.

"Alphys-" You gently press your hands into the small woman's shoulder, stilling her fidgeting form. "Alphys. Tell me what's wrong."

Alphys takes a deep breath.

"You're dying."

...Oh.

"W-w-well not really. N-Not like you're cur-currently progressing towards de-death." She stumbled over her words. She pushes at her glass as her cheeks turn red. "So-Souls show a rep-representa-tation of da-damage our bo-bodies have taken. Wou-wounds from Ma-Magic can o-only be healed by M-Magic. Tha-That's why our food i-is la-laced with it."

Okay that make sense. However, you're pretty sure you definitely ate while in the underground, and had definitely been hurt by magic, so why weren't you being healed?

Before you can get the sentence out, Alphys scrambles towards her desk and starts violently throwing around pages of paper.

"I-I have a hy-hypothesis to why you aren't be-being healed… I've never had an ac-actual human to test my the-theory on so… But you al-already proven over half of it correct!" She beams at you as she hurries back over with a stack of pages amassed with scrawled handwriting in black and blue ink.

"Human's are primarily-built differently than m-m-monsters when it comes to ho-holding magic." She thumbs through the stack and then pulls out a piece that show a diagram of a monster and a human. Arrows are pointing to different places, specifically describing the use of color. There was only one color used, it was blue, showing monsters completely filled with it, while the human was empty, but had it on the outside of them, like a second skin.

"M-Monsters are made u-up of Magic." She points to the first diagram. "That's wh-why when we dig-digest magic, it heals us fr-from the inside o-out." Then she moves her claw to the human. "Si-Since humans don't naturally ha-have magic i-inside, f-food doesn't help. Th-they need to be im-impacted from the ou-outside."

"That makes sense." You say, then a second later you frown. "I don't like the word "impacted", though. Like… How? In what way?" Alphys gives you a look before neatly (by neatly you must mean haphazardly) setting her stack of papers on the ground.

Your soul, like it did towards you, moves sluggishly away from Alpyhs's reaching hands. However, its reaction pulls at something from Alphys and you're surprised to see a familiar glow of yellow from her chest. The yellow is warm, and inviting, and you can physically feel your body relax at the feeling of it. The feeling also washes over you soul. The green glow turns olive and you watch, and feel, as the floating pieces around it are pulled back together. Slowly your soul is whole. Even the white cracks seal themselves.

You're astonished to also feel whole.

What you had thought to be emotional turmoil over the past day (or two (or more you still weren't sure on how long you'd been underground)) weighing physically on you, had actually been the pain your soul had been in. You feel revived. You feel more than okay. The burn in your side and the pain in your wrist have vanished, only leaving the ghost of a feeling. In wonder you push a hand under your shirt, under your bandages, and feel the skin underneath.

Gone. Your wounds inflicted by magic spears and fireballs have disappeared. The sudden relief moves you.

Alphys returns your soul to you. Or rather your soul realizes she never meant any harm and wasn't trying to fight it so it returns to wherever it metaphorically lived in your chest.

"Thank you." You finally manage to say, amazement and appreciation still engulfing you. You try to convey your happiness to Alphys by smiling but it doesn't capture it all and she turns away in embarrassment before you're sure she can fully understand.

"N-No problem!" She squeaks. Frisk grabs your attention, physically, making a noise when they notice you're no longer covered in wounds and bruises. You turn fully towards them, sliding out of your seat so that they can get the full view. They hum in appreciation, reaching their small hands up and you pick them up without any hesitation. The development makes them extremely happy.

It's then that Alphys begins to awkwardly glance between you and Frisk. Whatever nerve she'd gathered from helping you began shattering as Frisk lovingly hugged your head. She must've felt like she was encroaching on a moment between you and the kid. When you go to reassure her your gratitude, she starts back peddling.

"I-I have to go to the bathroom!" You frown as she runs backwards and behind a sliding door to the right of the large hole in her wall. You watch her yellow feet under the door tap before you glance to Frisk.

"Let's go." They sign before returning their hands to your shoulders. You bounce them, smiling, and then take one last look around the lab before heading towards the opposite end.

The door's metal gears chug as they roll the door open, allowing you two back out into the heat. It hits you like a wall and you frown at the sweat that immediately starts on your temple. The air also smells burnt, something you'd forgotten about in the filtered air in Alphys's laboratory.

Frisk pulls from your arms and you set them down, glad because it already felt cooler not having them pressed against your face.

"I'm glad you're okay." They sign, their happy smiling wavering. You realize all at once they they definitely, most definitely, had noticed how hurt you were. They had been worried and, most likely, scared for you. You quickly kneel and pull them tightly into your arms.

"I'm glad I'm okay, too."

And there it was, the reason why you had still been walking even though you were still wounded. You knew the answer, but had opted out of telling Alphys. It wasn't very scientific and you weren't sure if she'd believe you or not. That reason you hadn't buckled under the wounds was because of Frisk.

You were determined to always stay with Frisk and protect them, no matter what. Even after being so severely hurt, you wouldn't let that take you from the kid.