The only exact measurement Zane could discern about Toriel's Butterscotch Pie recipe was the amount of butter, and that was after a story Asgore told him about the disaster of a time his kids tried to make it. His most recent epiphany was to put cinnamon in the crust. He also had Mettaton with him in the kitchen this time, he might know how to entertain but after their cooking show, Zane determined the ghost turned robot had only slightly more culinary prowess than Papyrus and Undyne.

"Wait, so I can't make a cake with just sugar,eggs, and milk, and MTT Brand Soul Substitute?" asked Mettaton

"No, you might be able to make a nice frosting with those but cake needs flour, and leveners as well," said Zane

"What kind of crazy science is this?" asked Mettaton

"Chemistry," said Zane with a smirk

Asgore walked in, wearing his newly repaired sweater.

"Just thought you two should know that the annual nose nuzzle competition is coming up, I doubt you would let Dogamy and Dogaressa win again," said Asgore,sitting at the table to read the paper.

"Noted, Asgore, was there cinnamon in the crust or just the filling?" asked Zane pouring over his notes.

"Just the filling, I doubt Tori ever thought of putting it in the crust," said Asgore

"I see," said Zane "Was it a lot of cinnamon or was it mostly butterscotch?"

"It was more Butterscotch with notes of cinnamon," said Asgore, penning answers in the daily crossword.

"Was the crust flaky or doughy?" asked Zane

"Doughy, like a sweet bread," said Asgore thoughtfully

"Ok that means the majority of the butter is in the filling," said Zane scribbling something down on the paper.

Zane then looked at the time.

"Shoot, I have to go, I'll be late for Papyrus and Undyne's cooking lessons," said Zane putting everything away.

"Metty, why don't you come with me," said Zane

"I'll pass darling, Undyne is one of the few here in the underground who don't like me," said Mettaton "Besides, it might be awkward, if I run into Blooky, they are neighbors afterall and, I don't think I'm ready to talk to them again,"

"You're going to have to at some point, it's not fair to them and not fair to you," said Zane gently

"You go have fun, I have to get ready for tonight's show," said Mettaton hugging Zane as they went different directions on L1. Zane headed to the River person and Mettaton stayed in the Elevator to go to R3.

Zane climbed on the boat.

"Waterfall please," said Zane

The boat went forward.

"Tra la la la la, the water is very dry today," said the River person absently.

At Waterfall, Zane got off the boat and resigned himself to another spaghetti making session, Papyrus never wanted to make anything else. Undyne was making leaps and bounds with her cooking skills. When Zane explained why some stuff had to be done delicately, she didn't really understand but went along with it until she saw the result was better when she did things carefully. Zane had showed her that following a recipe precisely was like a perfect battle plan that wouldn't fall apart when executed. But papyrus seemed to want to make every recipe as complex as possible, not willing to admit there was a simple solution, claiming simplicity was just lazy. So Zane had to use two different teaching methods. He knocked on Undyne's door.

"Hey Zane, Pap got here early as usual," said Undyne

"Ok, Undyne, today you are going to be practicing precision. Papyrus, I'm going to teach you how to make your own pasta, this is a very complex pasta recipe that will take all your concentration, make sure to follow it to the letter," said Zane, giving him the recipe card.

"What kind of precision training will I be doing?" asked Undyne

"I need the vegetables for the sauce cut to these exact measurements using the technique I taught you last week, I will be at the table working on figuring out a specific recipe for Asgore," said Zane.

Papyrus gave a salute and quickly got to work and Undyne got the vegetables organized. Teaching Undyne knife skills the previous week had been terrifying. Zane compared his notes based on all the pie recipes he knew, the information from Asgore, and previous attempts. Asgore was also getting low on snails because Zane had been using them in various recipes that the king seemed to love. He knew Napstablook owned the snail farm next door so he'd get some more non sentient snails from the ghost.

"You two continue working, I need to go get some more snails from Napstablook, Asgore is running low," said Zane

"Yes sir!" exclaimed Undyne as she continued to ensure each onion was perfectly diced.

Zane knocked on the door to Napstablook's house, hoping the ghost was there and not hanging out in the Ruins again.

The headphone sporting ghost appeared outside the door.

"Oh, hello," said Napstablook

"Hi, I need to get more snails for the king, the non sentient kind," said Zane

"O-oh, of course," said Napstablook

Zane gave a kind smile.

"You're Zane right? Mettaton's co-star?" asked Napstablook giving him a bucket of snails.

"Yes, we're doing a meet and greet in a few months, I'm sure I can get the King's number one snail provider a good spot in line," smiled Zane

Napstablook smiled as Zane left.

Lab

Entry 42

Determination has various degrees of potency, mild, intermediate and soul experiments failed because Human determination is too potent and chemically based instead of magic based. Intermediate is a mix of chemical DT and magical DT, mild is strictly magic. Too much of any level will cause monsters to melt but it takes a very small dose of Human DT, magic DT has the highest tolerable dose.

Entry 43

Undyne has submitted herself for testing. I have a theory.

Entry 44

Undyne has high levels of mild DT but unless she has reason to use it, it won't harm her.

Entry 45

The barrier is a type of magic that is designed to repel other magic up to certain levels. I wonder if I can create an artificial human soul by extracting the traits from the others and adding adrenaline and intermediate DT. Getting Adrenaline will be difficult.

Entry 46

Mrs. Snowdrake went home today.

Entry 47

Sans said he made a promise to a woman behind a door in the woods. That promise will be hard to keep considering his primary job, yeah Asgore told me.

Entry 48

I asked Sans to judge my soul, and I also told him he could always rely on me to keep any secrets he felt burdened him. He acts lazy but he knows I see through him, we have more in common than I thought.

Entry 49

Undyne came by to hang out with Alphys while I worked on my own DT experiments, I called her Nya by accident and she made me tell her who Nya is. Undyne seemed impressed and wished there was a way to meet Nya.

Entry 50

Artificial soul experiment A is progressing steadily, without Adrenaline it might be hard to make intermediate DT. I wonder if I can scrap the intermediate plan and overdose the soul on mild. That could simulate the combination of a human and monster soul but I'm unsure. I wish I could talk to the souls and get to their opinions.

Entry 51

I talked to Asgore and Alphys about ice construct bodies for the human souls. Asgore said it would be fine. I think a way for those kids to live again would take some of the burden off of him.

After a lot of test pies and days where Zane didn't even want to think about sugar, he had gotten the recipe as close to perfect as he could. He knew that sentimental recipes made by someone else were never as special but he had done his best.

Zane eagerly awaited Asgore's critique.

"It tastes just like Tori's! It's just missing her love but I know that will never be replicated," said Asgore, grabbing another piece. Zane smiled, happy that he was able to help.

The next day Zane was at the lab again, spending more time there since they were so close to fully curing the Amalgamates.

"Hey Al, do you know the genders of each of the fallen children who these souls belonged to?" asked Zane

"According to Undyne, the blue one was a girl, a ballet dancer. Cyan was also a little girl, according to the Whimsum who killed her she was probably 6 years old. Killing her caused all the Whimsums to feel immense guilt, you know how sensitive they are. Orange and Yellow were boys, probably 11 years old. I think Purple was a girl, green as well. The only one Asgore killed himself was yellow, but the order was given to kill any human who fell, so other monsters killed the other five.

"Could you call all the monsters who killed them and ask for a description? I want the constructs as accurate as possible, once the seventh souls is here or I find a way to make an artificial soul, I will disable the constructs for Asgore to absorb the souls. If the kids understand why Asgore needed them dead and how awful he feels about it, as well as a promise that they can leave him once the barrier is broken, they won't fight against him when he absorbs them," said Zane

"That's actually a really good idea, they'd have to live somewhere other than hotland though," said Alphys

"Yeah, Snowdin might be best but they'll need to be closer to the castle, I wonder if I can convince Mettaton to let them live in the resort," said Zane

"We should also have monsters collect anything the children left down here, giving them back their personal effects might go a long way in convincing them to help us," said Alphys "I'll go make the call to Undyne, she can get the rest of the guard on it,"

Alphys left to go call Undyne and Zane resumed his artificial soul experiment.

Entry 52

Artificial DT is proving difficult to manufacture. The best I have been able to make is perseverance, DT seems like an ultra advanced form. Once I can talk to the souls I might have better luck.

Entry 53

Lemon Bread successfully separated. All the monsters in that Amalgam went home this afternoon. The Memory heads are still being difficult.