Alphys bit her lip, thinking for a moment as she stared at the robotic box in front of her. It was… the best she'd managed, using the bits of scraps she could scrounge up from the dump. The outcome, all things considered, wasn't actually that terrible. The body was by far her most ambitious project, and it had turned out better than she could hope.

The ghost monster floated beside her, grinning at the body she saw before her.

"I um… I-I uh…" Alphys seemed to be struggling to find her words as she nervously rubbed at the sleeve of the overcoat she was wearing, olive in color, faded, and patched. It used to belong to her mom, who…

She didn't really want to think about that.

Hapstablook stared at the box for several more moments, before glancing at Alphys. "So… I can…?" she asked, still grinning just as wide. Alphys gave her a nod, and the ghost immediately vanished, barely a second later the box began to rattle and shake, before it blossomed to life with lights, sound, and rolling about excitedly on a single wheel, waving its arms about for a moment.

"Oh, it's wonderful!" the new voice was robotic coming from the box, but it still was capable of providing emotion. Alphys stared at Hapstablook as she whirled about for a good few minutes, until she rolled to a stop in front of the monster. "It's lovely, absolutely lovely darling, just… one question? This voice, it's very masculine."

"O-oh, yeah, s-sorry…" Alphys rubbed her arm again. "It's j-just a placeholder, I-I can make a… a uh… a n-new one…"

"Are you kidding? I love it! Now I can sing baritone!" the robot replied happily. "I mean- not that I couldn't before, but now it will be so much simpler."

Alphys didn't reply as Hapstablook continued zooming about for several moments, then came to a stop at the edge of the river, gazing down into it for a moment. "Alphys, darling," she called. "I must say, you've really pulled through, and… well… thank you. I can't express to you enough how much I appreciate this," she turned to look at Alphys, who gave an awkward smile.

"I-It was… no problem…"

"No problem? Darling, this body is magnificent! You mentioned it was for human eradication before, right?"

"W-well, yeah… I-I wanted to… s-show it to the k-king but I-I… w-well… I just… I couldn't p-program it, and… well… yeah…"

"Alphys, we've been friends for a long time now, I think you deserve a little something out of this miracle you've performed for me too!" Hapstablook replied, rolling up to the reptilian monster and placing an arm around her shoulder. "Tell you what. I can think of a way for this body to work in both of our favors."

"Y-you can?"

"Of course I can! I'm me, after all," she placed a hand importantly on her flat front. "With this awesome new bod, I don't have to be afraid to show off my talents anymore, I can be somebody new! A new name, a rising star! Oh, and if any humans fall down here I can perform those other duties as well."

Alphys gulped. "A-and… me?"

"You present me to the King, of course!" Hapstablook chortled. "We forgo the whole 'ghost possessing hunk of metal' thing and let the official story be that you just… made me. This is for that scientist position, right?"

"B-but… isn't that… cheating?"

"Darling, it's not cheating if nobody knows," Hapstablook bopped a finger against Alphys' nose, before rolling around the monster in a circle a few times. "Just think about it! You can finally get out of the dump, get royal status, and have access to the best technology the underground has! If you could make this body out of scraps just imagine what you could do with real resources!"

"so. you're the new royal scientist, huh?"

Alphys nearly dropped the blueprints she'd written up, jumping slightly at the voice behind her. She wasn't aware that anybody else was around, much less down here in the restricted zone of all places.

Immediately, the newly appointed royal scientist spun on her heel, coming face-to-face with a skeletal figure, around the same height as her. He was grinning at her, gazing almost lazily back with a pair of small white lights hanging within his eye sockets. She blinked. He blinked.

"U-um… I don't think you're… authorized-"

"nah, it's fine. i helped out the previous royal scientist," the skeleton stated. "name's sans, by the way. sans the skeleton," he stuck out a hand, and her eye caught something attached to his palm. She opted to lightly shake his fingers instead, but one came off in her hand, and a loud fart echoed through the silent, empty chambers as he closed his hand into a fist.

There was a long moment of silence that followed as she stared wide-eyed at him, then at the finger in her hand, then back at him, before he slid the finger from her grasp and placed it back onto his hand as though nothing had happened. "never met someone scared of whoopie cushions," he stated, grinning somewhat wider. When she didn't reply, he stuck his hands into his pockets, and shrugged. "uh… anyway, what's your name?"

She pulled herself from her stupor as she wiped her hand on the brand new lab coat she'd just gotten (though it was somewhat too big). "A-A-Alphys."

"nice to meet ya, a-a-alphys," Sans replied, "i hear you're pretty smart, so i might need your help on something."

That "something" turned out to be the CORE's heart, which had been split in two. In fact, the entire reactor room was a mess. Sans claimed there'd be some sort of accident, and it was somehow tied to the disappearance of the last royal scientist, though when implored for what they were like, Sans seemed to mysteriously become deaf.

And that's how the two met and worked together for the next few years. They looked over the blueprints Sans had found, but it was written in strange symbols. They were only able to repair the heart to a certain point before they risked undoing all of their progress.

'as long as it doesn't set off the volcano we're good' Sans had said. Then they'd worked together for several more projects, Alphys quickly learning more and more about this previous royal scientist along the way.

Sans seemed to be the only person alive who remembered him, and apparently held the assumed dead monster in very high regard. Sans even had a brother, though Alphys had yet to meet him, only learning about him through conversation with the older, but shorter brother. Sans was, to Alphys' surprise, extremely brilliant. She doubted he even needed her to fix the CORE's heart, and she'd have never figured it out without him. His knowledge on things she'd never even heard of was astounding. The properties of both human and monster SOULs, the power of Determination, and the fact that all magic was, essentially, the same.

But as Alphys grew comfortable in her position, her relationship with Hapstablook became strained and distant. The ghost possessing a robot, now known as 'Mettaton' (after several reworks including 'Hotbot' and 'Fabumech'). Just as Mettaton had always wanted, he had become a star. No longer a she, though he really didn't seem to mind. The public had identified the robot as a male due to the voice, and Mettaton had simply accepted it. In just months he'd become a full-fledged celebrity, and had been visiting Alphys less and less frequently to the point where… well… he only ever came for tune-ups.

Her various experiments with Sans were usually very… interesting, to say the least. He'd bring up old ideas the previous royal scientist had, and present them to Alphys, who of course became obsessed with the ideas. One of the most intriguing was the idea of creating life through Determination. Sans had made it clear that life could be sustained with it, but could it be created?

Asgore gave authorization to her for some of his flowers from his garden, giving her only a few, not wanting to defile his precious bed of flowers. With Sans, she operated on the flowers, attempting to create life, injecting each one with Determination extracted from the six human SOULs and putting each flower into different, controlled environments.

The flowers didn't become sentient, but they didn't seem to need water or sunlight to survive anymore. So she returned some of the flowers, planting them back in the garden, while keeping a few of the others to see how long they could survive. Interesting project, but ultimately not ground-breaking.

Mettaton was an absolute star by now. They were in the middle of building an entire resort in his honor, and the fame had all gone to his head. Hapstablook was gone, bottom line. She'd been completely replaced by Mettaton, who never even contacted his cousins any more (even though they were the only ones outside of Alphys that were aware of Mettaton's true identity). In an effort to connect with Mettaton more, Alphys had undertaken another ambitious robotics project, working on Mettaton's body more and more frequently, promising a new body that he could transform into.

This got him excited, and they finally started spending more time together. Her confidence was soaring with her relationships. Sans always had her back, Mettaton was back in her life, Asgore was always happy to praise her work… everything was practically perfect.

Until it wasn't.

"What do you mean 'won't respond'?"

Alphys stood in her public lab, staring back at the lion monster who'd rolled in a young monster on a garney. The young monster appeared asleep as he lay still beneath a blanket. "I mean he won't respond," the lion replied. "It's been weeks, he's in some kind of catatonic state, and he's not the only one."

"Did you take him to the Hospital?"

"Just came from there," the monster replied as Alphys stared worriedly at the kid. The lion stared at her expectantly, and she took several moments, before furrowing her brow.

"Bring them all here. I'll get to the bottom of this. I promise."

Several hours later in the underground laboratory, Alphys walked down a row of monsters lying in beds. Fourteen so far. All of them in some kind of coma. Completely unresponsive to… well… anything. Sans stood off to the side, appearing just as confused as her.

"I don't get it," she muttered to him as she approached. "It's almost like some kind of illness, but monsters can't get sick. Right?"

"not as far as i'm aware," Sans admitted, his gaze somewhat dark. "i've gone through his old files, nothing about this."

It didn't sit well with her. She ran tests, took samples, but all the results were quite simply normal. There were no abnormalities to them from a medical standpoint.
"It's like they've Fallen Down–but half these monsters are too young to even consider that a possibility," Alphys shook her head. Sans gave her no response.

And then they died. Just slowly turned to dust, one by one. It started slow, their bodies flaking, before eventually, they became a flurry and nothing was left behind. She… didn't have the strength to tell the families. As they continued to visit, she just lied. She told them they were in more intensive care deeper within the facility and couldn't be visited anymore.

She felt horrible, but she just simply didn't have the strength to tell them the truth. To see their faces. And worst of all… be blamed for her failure. She already blamed herself so much, but to hear it from other people would devastate her.

But that wasn't the last of it. More monsters would come in, and every time, the results were the same. Perfectly healthy, before they'd just turn to dust. No matter what she and Sans tried to do it didn't make a difference.

Until one day, Sans just… disappeared. He left her a note, mentioning that he needed to focus on his brother more, and that he wished her the best of luck. Due to the crises, she was mostly secluded within her lab, and refused all visitors.

In an act of desperation, a thought came to mind. Determination. Sans had once told her it could keep beings from dying… so why didn't she just use the leftover DT on these monsters?

So that's what she did.

And it worked.

Or so she thought.

They were alive.

Alphys saw this the moment she exited the elevator into her deep facility to find all twelve of the monsters she'd injected with DT were milling about. She was ecstatic, talking to each of them, informing them of what had happened, taking a few samples… same as always they were perfectly healthy.

Everything was fine.

She hastily alerted the families of these monsters, and they came quickly. They were reunited. She'd finally beaten this impossible disease.

The families were sent home, and she finally got a somewhat decent rest, having been able to save at least a few.

She just never realized it would be her last.

Her work on Mettaton continued in the morning, before it was suddenly interrupted by phone calls. Calls from all of the families she'd just helped. Cries, sobs, accusations… The treated monsters were all rushed back into her lab, their catatonic states having returned, only this time, it was worse. The samples she took, having expected the same results as always, were unsettling. Their cellular structure was in some sort of decay, the samples she'd taken melting into strange puddles.

And then the screaming started. All of her patients began writhing in their beds, squirming, gyrating, convulsing, you name it. Their bodies flailed about as they screamed endlessly. She was completely and utterly horrified, taking refuge in the bathroom as their wails continued on into the night, before it all suddenly stopped.

Alphys slowly moved her hands from her ears, her lip quivering as she wiped the dry tears off of her face. Cautiously, she rose to her feet from the huddled position she'd been in for the last few hours.

Dead silence accompanied her labored breathing as she slowly opened the door, and peeked outside to find… well, she wasn't sure at first. They hadn't turned to dust. But they weren't… them… anymore.

They were irreparably damaged, in a state that she couldn't believe had been her doing. Most of them had somehow merged with others in some form or fashion, melted together to form entirely new beings. They were moving about, appearing almost… feral. They spoke to each other, but in a language she couldn't comprehend. Their bodies seemed to fade in and out of existence before her eyes.

She'd created abominations.

Amalgamations…

This was… far worse than death. The pain and agony they'd endured to become these melted creatures was horrific, but none of them seemed to clearly recall it. Most could barely remember their own names. On top of that, they also seemed to require food now, unlike monsters. Whatever the Determination had done to them had made them… physical. Non-magical beings, or at least in terms of their bodies. They'd become… somewhat… human. Twisted, corrupted, deformed, but a strange combination between human and monster. She tried to contact Sans about this, but he wasn't much help, using the same excuse he'd used before. He was… truthfully the only person she was comfortable revealing this to.

She couldn't let the families know. She wouldn't. This was… she was a horrible, horrible person for letting this happen.

"I deserve to die" is something she often told herself frequently in private. Her confidence gone, her will vaporized, her self-worth extinguished… she felt no point in living. She'd messed up beyond repair, this was something she couldn't be forgiven for.

And so, one night, she found herself standing at the edge of the cliff over the dump, staring down at the distant garbage, her eyes welling with tears as she stared down.

It was so hard to follow through, no matter how badly she wanted it…

Her lip quivered as she took a step forward, her eyes closing, her breath held in anticipation.

"You okay?"

She opened her eyes, jumping backward from the ledge slightly, whipping about in surprise to see somebody she'd never personally met before approaching her.

A fish monster, blue scaly skin, golden eye, crimson hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing a tanktop, skinny jeans, and a pair of boots, her left eye concealed behind an eyepatch.

"W-what?" Alphys gasped out, staring wide-eyed at the approaching monster, who grinned back.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you!" she rubbed the back of her head. "Asgore told me I should meet you, since I'm gonna be the new Captain of the Royal Guard and all that!"

"Oh… uh… hi…" Alphys managed out, feeling her soul trembling within her. "Um… I… I-I'm Alphys."

"Undyne!" the fish monster stuck out a hand. Alphys shook it, blinking a few times. She'd been so close to…

But she hadn't followed through. Because of Undyne, she continued living. And as it turned out… Undyne was more than just her savior for the day. Undyne quickly became her best friend. They watched anime together, talked all the time, discussed their interests… she… she grew to love her.

And because of that, this secret love she held for Undyne, she held on. Alphys still didn't have the strength to tell the people of her awful mistake. She took care of the amalgamates in her lab, and refused anyone entry down there. She talked to Sans off and on, though their interactions were brief. She even got to meet his brother, Papyrus, who requested a puzzle contraption to use in Snowdin Forest.

And she finished Mettaton's body, though he made it clear he was waiting for a very special occasion to reveal the new form.

"I'm always so impressed when you do your work, I doubt I could ever pull off stuff like that," Mettaton admitted as Alphys wiped some oil from her cheek, staring through the open panel in Mettaton's side.

"I-It's nothing, really…" she replied, closing the panel as Mettaton wheeled himself to the center of the room, doing a little twirl for a moment.

"Ah, much better! That central processing unit you installed is working wonders on my memory components!"

"You uh… do know you don't actually n-need those… right?" Alphys asked the robot, whose digitized face made the expression of a frown.

"I don't see why not."

"W-well, I mean… you're still a ghost underneath it all, and-"

"Ah-hahaha!" Mettaton laughed as she said this, cutting her off. "Darling, I fused ages ago, I thought I told you this?"

"B-but what if there's an issue!?" she immediately blurted out. "We agreed to-"

"Don't worry, don't worry," Mettaton replied, waving a hand dismissively. "I understand the risks, but really, any ghost should be as lucky as me to fuse with a body like this- or my new form. Besides, that old ghost is history. I'm Mettaton, remember? No more ectoplasm, no more being incorporeal… it's just metal and magic here, darling."

With that, Mettaton rolled away, leaving Alphys to clean up the mess from his tune-up, pursing her lips as she did so, but her attention was cut away. A sudden beeping sound alerted her that a high-priority camera had just caught something.

Wiping her hands of oil, she approached her computer, typing a code into the keyboard before the main screen flashed to the viewpoint of the camera she'd installed in Snowdin Forest, at the entrance to the Ruins.

The great amethyst door was closing shut- wait, closing shut? It hadn't been opened in… well… forever! Since long before her birth. She watched as a short figure stood in front of the doors once they were closed, sealed again. Something Alphys never believed she'd live to see.

A human child was standing there, on her monitor.