She needed a vessel.
In order to break the barrier, the soul power equivalent to that of seven human souls was needed. Six humans have already fallen into the underground and perished since Asgore declared war, their souls had been collected and it all seemed as if freedom was close.
It has been a long time since the last human fell, any day now could be the day where the last soul they needed would finally be given to them. Then monsterkind would be freed at last.
So they waited. One day turned into a week, then a month, then a year, then more.
But yet nothing happened.
It was like the world was taunting them, they were so close to freedom yet so far, the inhabitants of the underground did their best to smile, to hide their sorrows while waiting. Always waiting, the hope that they would soon to be free was what kept them all going.
But what if they didn't have to wait ? What if all they needed to be free was already with them right now ?
A monster soul was significantly weaker than a human soul, it would take the soul power of nearly every monster just to equal that of one human soul.
The truth was that there was already enough soul power in the underground to open the barrier, they just couldn't use it. The barrier would have already been opened if they were able to use what they already had.
The souls of monsters.
It was a crazy idea, but it could work. If the souls of most of the monsters living in the underground could be borrowed then given back without killing their hosts or at least that the souls of dead monsters could be preserved until they had enough of them, then their souls could be used as a replacement for the missing human soul. Their souls together with the six human souls would suffice to break the barrier.
However, there were many problems with this idea. The first was that collecting the soul of a living monster would require a formidable amount of power and risked destroying the host's body. Boss monster's souls could persist for a few moments outside of a body but for the rest of the monsters, how could their souls even be collected in the first place ? Let alone doing so without killing them.
The second problem was that monsters couldn't absorb other monster souls, even if she did manage to get monster souls out of their hosts temporarily without killing them, how could they even be used to break the barrier ? A single entity able to absorb both human and monster souls would be needed in order to break the barrier like this, it would also need to be able to give the souls back to who they belong after doing it.
This was where she came in, after being asked by the king to unleash the power of the soul, Alphys believed that she might have a solution to both of these problems. The key to their freedom was one single substance : "Determination"
Determination was what allowed human souls to persist after death, even after their owners had passed away the souls remained intact outside of their body thanks to determination and could be used later on.
But what if determination could be used to allow monster souls to live on their own as well ? If that was the case then freedom was closer than anyone had realized.
Asgore had requested for fallen down monsters to be sent to Alphys to her to continue her studies. She was nervous about having to use living subjects for her experiments but it was the only way and these monsters were already condemned to turn to dust very soon. In the best case scenario she would find a way to break the barrier while the worst case scenario was just for them to die, which they would have anyways without her doing anything. She had nothing to lose by trying.
She was able to obtain determination by extracting it from the six human souls they already had after borrowing them from the king, Alphys had stored a significant amount of it into syringes for her experiments.
When she injected their content into the fallen down monsters, Alphys had never felt so nervous. Despite this, she didn't let her own fears get in the way of the freedom of her kind. The worst had passed, now the most difficult part was over.
Alphys went through her notes one last time just to be sure. According to her predictions, she should be able to get the souls from the fallen down monsters very soon. If this worked then all she needed was a vessel and centuries of imprisonment would come to an end thanks to her.
The vessel needed to be able to absorb both types of souls at once, it needed to have enough will to destroy the barrier using its new soul power then be able to give back all the souls it had absorbed previously once it was done.
The vessel needed to be neither a human nor a monster, it needed to be soulless, but to be filled with the determination to live.
Alphys took a moment to try and think of the most appropriate candidate. A soulless living being would be a good choice as it needed to be determined to live. It also needed to be soft enough to be injected with determination in the first place and large enough for the whole dose to be brought into its system without damaging it or killing it.
Some sort of large plant would do fine.
An idea popped up in her mind, she knew what to use as a vessel. Not only did it fit all the requirements but it even had quite the poetic aspect to it.
A golden flower. The flower from the surface world, would be the one to set them all free. Not to mention that those had become the king's favorites flowers ever since they were first brought underground following the incident that started the war in the first place. Surely it would bring a smile on his face.
In fact, there was one golden flower in particular that caught Alphys' attention. Whenever she visited Asgore.
It was the very first golden flower, the one that grew before all the others. This golden flower has two particularities.
The first was that it was the tallest of them all, a ray of light from the surface which reflected its way into the garden illuminated the flower for most of the day which allowed it to thrive more than its counterparts. The second was that unlike all other golden flowers which had five petals, this one had six petals, one for each human soul they already had.
it sat in the center of the king's garden and thanks to these traits, it was the first flower anyone entering it would notice. The flower that would end the war sat right where Asriel's dust once spread, right where the tragedy that started this war in the first place happened.
It truly would make a great vessel, both for practical use and for symbolic reasons. She had made her choice.
She decided to make it a surprise, she did not tell Asgore about her choice for the vessel yet, Alphys took the tools needed to pick up the flower and left for the king's home.
Asgore was busy travelling the underground to talk with its residents as he often did, he was a very understanding monarch who stayed close to his subjects and listened to their problems, that made him a great ruler although he still struggled sometimes without the queen, as Gerson often says she was the brains behind the throne.
Alphys took very slow and quiet steps as she entered the king's residence. It was quite a modest home but this place had a certain aura that inspired respect to anyone trespassing it. When she got inside, she noticed that the way downstairs was locked and that a note sat near it.
She read the note to find an apology from the king explaining that he wasn't available currently but that if anyone had something on their mind he would be glad to receive them once he comes back.
Alphys put the note back where she found it and continued anyways, ducking under the chain and proceeding downstairs.
When she finally made it to the throne room, her eyes immediately focused on the six petaled golden flower she was looking for. Alphys examined the flower for a bit, it was in perfect health, it had not the smallest cut on any of its petals, its stem was straight and firm and its roots looked very solid.
The scientist began carefully digging around the flower, she made sure to leave enough space around it so that she wouldn't damage its roots too much. Once it was done she moved the flower and the dirt around it into the flower pot.
Carrying the flower with her, Alphys went back to the lab where the equipment needed for the injection was. She also had to check if any changes had taken place among the fallen down monsters while she was elsewhere, she didn't know how long it would take before they turned to dust and she might only have a short time to get the souls.
She hurried her way back to the lab without finding anyone on the way there.
After verifying that the monsters were still in the same state, Alphys grabbed her syringes of determination and began the experiment on the vessel.
She took a deep breath and began looking for a spot that could be used for the injection without risking to damage the plant. Once she made her choice, she used her left hand the hold it in place whilst making sure not to bend it. She grabbed the syringe and slowly brought the needle closer and closer until it reached its target.
The royal scientist quadruple checked that no mistakes had been made during the preparation before finally pressing her fingers. Very slowly the golden colored liquid that filled the syringe began its insertion into its new host. She was doing it bit by bit in order to give the time for the determination to spread inside the flower, if she injected it all at once it might be too much too fast which risked damaging the plant as well.
She gave the flower an amount of determination even greater than what she had given to the fallen down monsters, the vessel's role was absolutely crucial and giving the determination to live to a flower would surely be more difficult than to give it to a monster's soul.
As long as it wasn't too much for the plant to live through, there were no downsides to giving it a very large dose of determination to make sure it would suffice to make it serve as a vessel for the souls once the time would come.
Once the injection was over, Alphys took a step back and observed the flower. It looked just the same as before, there was no noticeable change at first glance. Just like with the fallen down monsters.
This was normal, the determination had to get fully get integrated within the organism, it might take some time for the results to come for the monsters, perhaps a bit longer than that for the vessel as its body was smaller but had a larger amount of determination to assimilate.
The doctor spent some time daydreaming about what would happen if her idea worked, about how everyone would react to those news. She was already fairly known for having created Mettaton but in reality she had just created his body, nothing more. She was still working on the new version of his body but she feared he might not need her anymore once its finished.
This project however might be her greatest achievement once it succeeded.
"Long time no see fluffybuns !" Gerson laughed at the memory of where that old nickname came from. King Asgore Dreemurr was delighted to see that Gerson was present this time around. When he first tried to get news from the old turtle he was absent and Asgore had to continue his journey forward without getting to see him.
Thankfully by the time Asgore had reached Snowdin town and came back for the return trip, Gerson had returned to his shop. The king had been worried that he might not get a chance to see Gerson this time around, he always enjoyed a short chat with him whenever he went to Waterfall.
"Howdy Gerson, has life been treating you well ?" The king wondered.
"Im doing as great as these old bones can manage. Wahaha ! What 'bout you ? We don't see you over here as often as we used to." The old monster responded.
"I apologise, I have had many things on my mind recently." Asgore admitted.
"Things change a lot with time, don't they ? Things haven't been the same since the queen left." Gerson's train of thought led him to mentioning dark times he probably shouldn't have.
Asgore's smile dropped.
"Ah.. Im sorry, im bringin' out bad memories am i ?" Gerson apologised.
"It is alright, the past must not be forgotten despite how painful its memory might be." Asgore turned to face the other direction and a few seconds passed.
Gerson sighed.
"Just one more soul… Heh, never thought I'd see the day." Gerson was never a big fan of the idea of breaking the barrier since even if it did happen and monsters left the underground, humans would probably just finish the job and eliminate them rather than accepting their return. There was a time where Asgore agreed to this as well, but now there he was, having already collected six human souls out of the seven required. The old "hammer of justice" might still be around to see the barrier breakin' if things kept going this way.
"Me neither" Asgore confessed.
Gerson knew his old friend well enough to know that despite everything, he didn't really want to destroy humanity, but it was way too late to back down from his anger filled declaration from long ago now. The old turtle didn't know how this whole mess would end, he was just hoping that fluffybuns knew what he was doing.
Later that day, Asgore sat down to write an entry for his journal. He commented on today having been a beautiful day and on everyone he had talked to as well as a couple issues that monsters in Hotland had addressed to him. He would work on solving those tomorrow.
The king grabbed his watering can and filled it up before walking down the stairs heading for the throne room. The light reflected on it as he made his way through the final corridor. He could already hear the sound of the birds chirping on the surface.
After taking a quick sad glance at the second throne covered in a white sheet, Asgore began singing to himself as he watered his flowers.
"Dum dee dum…"
Asgore had many golden flowers around the house, he originally kept them in memory of Chara, but he ended up becoming quite fond of them himself. The boss monster was proud of being able to call himself one of the best gardeners in the underground.
He had almost ran out of water now, the king split the remaining content of the can as equally as he could between the last few flowers that hadn't yet been watered before turning back, leaving the garden.
The light from the surface shone above the wet flowers, small transparents drops of water hit the ground once in a while, after falling from the petals of one of the golden flowers.
This scene was nothing new, it happened every single day.
But today, there was a difference.
The difference was slight, so small that the king had not noticed it, but one flower was missing from the garden and where it once stood was nothing but upturned dirt.
It was getting nowhere.
Time has passed since she began the experiments, but there were no results.
According to Alphys' predictions, by now the monsters should have turned to dust and she should have already collected their souls already. But that didn't happen, none of the bodies had turned to dust yet. And the vessel had not moved a petal either !
But why ? The scientist didn't understand where was the problem. Based on the work she did on paper, everything should have been fine !
Some of the families of the monsters began trying to contact Alphys as she hadn't given them back the dust for the funeral as she was supposed to.
She refused to give up hope so fast on a plan that had to potential to free her entire kind. Alphys decided to keep injecting everything with more determination, hoping that increasing the dosage might help trigger the reactions she wanted.
The monsters and the flower were all injected with an extra dose of determination in the following hour.
Maybe this time, she would get results.
The clock kept ticking by.
Alphys was starting to get desperate as time continued to pass without anything happening when suddenly, one of the bodies opened its eyes.
One by one, the fallen down monsters began to wake up. Alphys was unsure of what caused this to happen instead of the outcome she had predicted but she was still proud of herself.
Fallen down monsters normally never wake up, they stay like this before eventually turning to dust. It seemed that the determination experiment was a failure in the end, but at least she had managed to save the life of dying monsters instead. She had still achieved something incredible even if it wasn't what she was aiming for. At least this story concluded itself with a happy ending.
Alphys called back all the families and told them proudly that everyone was alive and well and that they would be back home very soon.
Once she hung up her sight fell on the vessel, still in its pot.
The experiments on the vessel had been a failure as well, Asgore wouldn't get his surprise after all.
Talking about Asgore, Alphys called him and informed him that she no longer needed the human souls, they were sent back shortly after.
There was just one last thing she needed to return to its place now. The unresponsive vessel.
However, without Alphys noticing this small detail, something did change with the vessel. Its color.
It was a different shade of gold now, it was slightly brighter than the other golden flowers. This change in color was no accident, the flower had taken the color of the substance it had been injected with. Slowly, the determination had began to assimilate itself to this new organism. The six petaled golden flower now had a third difference compared to its counterparts.
Carrying the pot with her, Alphys returned to the garden and put the flower back where it used to be before going back to check on the newly resurrected monsters.
There was no sign that the flower had ever been moved aside from the dirt, but the next time the king came back to water his flowers, the wet dirt took back its normal shape hiding the last trace of Alphys' intervention as the king sang and the flowers absorbed the nutrients from the ground.
Minutes after the king had left, the remaining water on the heads of the flowers once again began accumulating on the edges of the petals before falling to the ground, drop by drop.
Among all these drops, some were different.
The drops from one of the flowers in particular.
Unlike the others, water wasn't the only liquid that composed them.
These drops were not transparent. They were slightly yellow tainted.
Soon, the day came to an end and twilight shone through the barrier. In the meantime, things in the lab had begun to take a turn for the worst. The monsters began melting and merging into each other to form repulsing amalgamations and Alphys was freaking out.
The experiments on the fallen down monsters had backfired , but what the royal scientist ignored was that the experiments on the vessel had not actually been a failure.
By injecting a golden flower with determination, she had just started a chain reaction the scale of which she could have never even imagined.
What happens when something without a SOUL gains the will to live ?
- Alphys