Frisk paused, took a deep breath, and looked out a doorway. Outside, the area was still in the process of swinging into place. Except, from the speed it was going, it didn't look like Alphys had any intention of letting it stop there. More important than that, however, was a familiar looking bridge—the exact one they'd been waiting for to literally bridge the gap. But it wasn't stopping, so that meant only one thing. Frisk only had a moment to prepare, and then they leapt out and managed to flop onto the bridge. Sensing someone on it, the bridge's safety measures locked it into place and stopped it in its tracks. Frisk took a deep sigh of relief.

*Finally catching the right area to escape fills you with DETERMINATION.

"Goddamn right it does," Frisk grumbled before they sat up. They took the moment to catch their breath and appreciate that they'd gotten as far as they had. It'd taken them a full hour to get around the Core as Alphys swapped the rooms in every configuration except for the actually helpful rooms. They had to trick her by stepping back into a room and then quickly trying to catch her moving the right room or passage into place. It'd been slow going and Flowey was probably downright furious with them on the other side, but at least this part of the journey was done.

They dusted themselves off and took great delight in every step forward until they reached the end of the bridge. At the end of the walkway, the elevator was still shut off, but they were more interested in the door next to it. They paused, bracing themselves. Would Mettaton be in there, waiting for them again? Would he drop his friendly demeanor, or would this world be different? Either way, they weren't looking forward to a fight. Saying a prayer to whatever kindly spirits might be listening, Frisk stepped in.

It was dim in the next room, but through the shadows they could see a familiar shape. Mettaton was waiting for them; they didn't have to fake their friendly smile but they did have to remind themselves not to tense up. "Hello again."

"Hello, darling. I'm glad to see you got through—Alphys has been making a real mess of the rooms around here. I had to fly just to reach here."

They laughed. "Lucky. I had to jump into the room and catch a bridge before it swung by."

"Poor dear," he sighed. "I'm sorry you've had to deal with her. Alphys can be a real bitch when she wants to be. Trust me, I know exactly how you feel."

Well, that just proves the animosity wasn't faked at least. Frisk frowned. "What did she do to you? If you don't mind me asking."

Like they thought, he eagerly snapped up the chance to talk, much like their own Mettaton would have. "Look at what she's done to me! I wasn't always like this, I'll have you know. I was just a simple Waterfall monster. I had big dreams." He paused, thoughtfully wringing one set of hands together until he started to speak again. "Stupid dreams, but big nonetheless. I wanted to see humans, to meet them. To become one even. That might sound silly to you, but it's what I wanted."

"No, it doesn't sound silly to me," they replied kind and gently. "I, um. You could say I wasn't exactly born into a body that suited me either." They paused, remembering the angst that had besieged them during those terrible years they were in the foster system, their dysmorphia compounding everything and making it so much worse. It'd gotten better once they came to live with Toriel, who hadn't questioned their wishes, but they could still remember that painful period in their adolescence when their body started growing in disagreeable ways. Hell, they were just waiting for the moment they could put their binder back on, sweaty and smelly as it would be, but better than nothing. "I didn't go as far as you did to change yourself, so I obviously didn't have it like you did, but I promise you, I do at least have an inkling."

He seemed to gaze at them, his clasped hands shaking before he forced his hands apart. "You're sweet. Maybe if I'd met someone like you, instead of—well. I obviously didn't. Instead, I met Alphys. She seemed like such a stroke of luck at the time. We met at the dump, digging around, looking for interesting human relics. She didn't even try to kill me, but that was probably because she wasn't armed with anything useful. We talked and it looked like maybe we could get along. We shared some movies. She only tried to kill me twice, which put her head and shoulders above some people I knew." He paused to glare sourly up at the ceiling. "But then, I stupidly told her that I'd like to look like a human. Ugh, it must have been like a golden opportunity for her. She told me she could make me a robot body like a human. She even drew up blue prints and designs for me to pick through. I was so excited. I was willing to stake everything on that chance.

"And then I came in to try her design and saw the body—this body. I don't know how I let her talk me into trying this body out, but once I was in, she sprung her trap and I was stuck."

"You can't get out of it?"

"No, it's something she built into the damn thing. I can kinda shift my body away, but my soul is stuck in place, so there's no going far, I'm afraid. And there's no one I can turn to help me now. The only person who knows what she did is Alphys and you can guess just how helpful she'd like to be.

"All I have left is my career. I always wanted to be on tv and when I refused to be her murder machine, she decided I should be a propaganda machine instead. I played nice with her and the state media for a bit, but my patience ran thin. They had me making awful dreck. Just the most boring nonsense ever. I've been trying to needle them a little and spice it up, but honestly it's so tiring. I thought I was going to just fall down out of bored and disgust.

"And then you came along."

Uncertain, Frisk nodded. "I did. And then you started to help me."

He straightened. "Yes." He sounded quite pleased.

"Why?"

They might have well as given him his cue. "Because you're a human! A real live human. Oh, god, I've always wanted to meet a human, just once, but you… You're so much better than anything I'd ever hoped for."

Frisk paused. What exactly does that mean? "How so?"

"Well, for one, you're not dead."

Well. They hadn't expected that answer. "…Thanks?"

He waved them off. "No, you don't get it! Your soul, it's the last one. With it, monsters will escape the Underground and then they will murder every last human they find. And that's the last thing I want to happen."

Considering it, that jived with what they knew about their own Mettaton—a lovely, charismatic but at the same time completely self-interested monster. But his ego had always been endearing. More than that, though, their Mettaton had also wanted to keep humanity safe. Even if they couldn't trust his sincerity fully, they thought that maybe they could trust his self interest.

"Alright. You want to protect humans. But how can I help you? What will helping me get you? Beside the protecting humans part."

For a moment, he was silent. Then he tossed his arms into the air, like he was physically tossing his caution away. "I want you to take me with you!"

Frisk blinked. "Okay."

Mettaton paused. "O-okay?"

"Sure. I could always use more allies." They shrugged, but kept their eyes trained on him. "Just tell me one thing first. Tell me why I should trust you're not just going to help me right until we get to the barrier and then stab me in the back. Why should I trust you in getting beyond the barrier?"

He took a moment before answering. "Look, I know about what you've been telling people. That you can get the barrier down, that you can get monsters out. But that's a terrible idea! If that happens, humans die. It won't be a repeat of the war from all those years ago. Monsters are—they spilled blood all of them, even…" he trailed off, voice soft. "Look. I know you're trying to help, but you're going to get humanity killed. But, but if I went with you, if we crossed the barrier together we can warn humans about us monsters. I'll be proof that you can use to prove it!"

"That's a fair point, I'll give you." Frisk nodded; Mettaton brightened visibly. "As in, I believe that you'd like to help humanity. But, Mettaton, can you tell me that it would be enough? To just be a messenger? Then what would you do?"

He considered them for a long moment before answering. "Look, I'll be honest with you. If maybe some human scientists could figure out how to reverse whatever it was that Alphys did to me, that'd be great. I'd—I'd give up being a celebrity to get out of this awful contraption. But, and this is important and I know that reason is selfish and that's why I didn't lead with it, but I swear, if I can at least warn humanity I'd be fine with not getting out." He flinched at his own words but then straightened, like he was really trying to commit to them. "I'd be okay, if I could at least live among them. Anything's better than here."

Frisk tried to stay aloof and cautious, but their heart softened. "Oh, Mettaton. I told you. Even if you can't get out of that body, humans love robots. I'm sure you'd be a big star out there too."

"I… I know you said that, but… oh, who cares! Robot body or not, I'll rock any world! So, please, Frisk, take me with you—don't leave me down here to wait until we rise up to kill humanity."

Frisk held up a hand to silence him, but smiled to show they weren't going to be cruel. "Well, with a pitch like that, how can I refuse? C'mon. We got a king to go meet."

For a shining moment, Mettaton seemed to radiate joy like warmth. He clasped his hands, like he was praying, like he wanted to clap them.

And then the room came alive with static from every corner before settling into a stable tone. "J-just what do you think you're d-doing?"

Mettaton flinched at Alphys' voice; Frisk glared upward and prayed that whatever mischief the scientist was up to that it was too far behind them to do any real damage.

"Evening, doc," Frisk said, eyes still glancing around in hopes of finding a hidden camera. "Here I thought I might have lost you for a second there."

She snorted. "There's nowhere I wouldn't be able to find you."

"She's lying," Mettaton snapped, sounding petulant. "She can't see into the Ruins for one, and there's plenty of others too."

"Feisty t-today," Alphys sneered. "Keep your idiocy to yourself for a change, before you land yourself in worse trouble. You've gone and really done it this time, you t-tin can. Did you honestly think I wouldn't find out about you plotting against the Overlord? Against everything we monsters have been t-trying to do?"

"Screw that! I never liked that stupid plan to begin with, why would I-" Before he could go on, his body seized and electricity swarmed over his body, arcs of light sparking as Alphys shocked him.

"Mettaton!" Frisk gasped, wanting to run to him, but knowing they'd only get shocked if they tried. "Alphys, stop it!"

Alphys chuckled and the attack stopped. The robot slumped over, body still sparking in places. "Y-you think you're such hot shit because you're, what, a 'celebrity'? That being a 'star' puts you above everyone else? Well, let me tell you right now, you're just as a-awful the rest of us.

"Tell me, Mettaton, when were you going to tell the human about what they need to cross the barrier? When were you going to tell them that they'll need a monster and a human soul to pass? Or were you ever? Were you just going to wait until their back was turned so you could r-rip their soul out and merge it with your own so you could escape too?"

"N-no," Mettaton moaned, his voice crackling—the shock had nearly fried his ability to speak normally. "I… I'd never-!"

"You would," Alphys huffed. "You're a coward and an ungrateful fool. I made you a body and you spit in my face. They offer to let you tag along, and you would have stolen their soul for your own, wouldn't you?"

"No!"

"Hmph. Still think you're above it all, huh? Well, Mettaton, I'm a r-reasonable monster. Why don't we let someone else judge how 'good' of a person you are, huh? And who better to judge than your own audience?"

"That's enough," Frisk said, putting their hands on their hips. "Alphys, back off and leave Mettaton alone. It's me you want, isn't it?"

"You know, human," Alphys began, voice thoughtful. "You're right. You are the one I want. But I don't see why I can't capture you and teach this idiot a lesson in obedience at the same time."

"Alphys!" Mettaton shrieked.

For a moment, the line went dead. Frisk and Mettaton warily looked around, waiting for whatever trap she had planned to spring. Then the line came back on, along with some lights, shining blindingly onto them.

"And now, fellow viewers, t-time for a real show."

They both jumped, but looking around revealed nothing. Then, from the corner of their eye, Frisk saw Mettaton freeze before one of his hands began to reach for his back. "Mettaton…?" they tried nervously, body tensing.

Mettaton only managed to halt his hand for a moment before it continued on. "Frisk, run," he whimpered in agony.

Then, the sound of a switch flipping and the world went white.

Frisk threw their hands up in time to be entirely blinded, but they still had to blink away spots. Thankfully, the lights had dimmed after the flash, but even now in the dimmer light, Frisk could still see the horror before her.

He was worse than they expected. It wasn't just four arms waving about. His face looked mostly similar to the Mettaton they'd known, except he had two eyes on the left side of his face and a single huge one on the right that was all black except for a golden crosshair for an iris. His hair was pushed back from his face, revealing a ghastly grin that went nearly ear to ear. The four arms weren't exactly a surprise, although one on each side had been replaced with plasma cannons, but the four spiderlike legs were. Each leg bent backwards, making him shift his weight side-to-side, moving from one peg leg to the other, like a horrifying crab scuttling about. None of the legs were attached, and his torso floated eerily above them.

This was no beautiful star standing before them, bold and shining. This was a nightmare.

"Let me introduce the human and our audience, to my upgrade for our dear celebrity's body. I call it Mettaton Neo."

Frisk licked their lips and took a breath. "Mettaton?"

That mismatched face looked upon them and began to tremble. "Don't look at me."

Feeling their heart break, they took a step forward. "Mettaton, wait, it'll—Mettaton, please, this won't change-"

Alphys coughed pointedly. "How about we show the nice folks at home some of your new t-tricks, Mettaton? Let's have some fun."

Mettaton jerked to the side, eyes wide and lolling as he searched for something. When the two arms with the arm cannons rose and began to glow, something whirring around loudly inside of them and making the light flicker, his gaze snapped forward. "Frisk, run!"

Frisk barely had time to dive out of the way, but then they had to keep scrambling forward as Mettaton dragged his arms around, the beam following them as they raced to keep ahead of it. Finally, the beam shut off, but Frisk had no time to celebrate. Next, his chest place swung open in the middle; his normal arms reached into the cavity and began to hurl bomb after bomb from a seemingly bottomless magazine.

Frisk managed to scurry away, but the blasts nearly deafened their right ear.

"FRISK, HURRY. YOU GOT TO DESTROY THIS BOD-!" His mouth clamped shut; deep within his body, Frisk shuddered to hear his true voice trapped within, screaming.

"That's enough out of you," Alphys snapped.

Frisk shivered. "I… I can't just hurt you."

"Didn't think so," Alphys laughed. "Just give up, human. Look at Mettaton. He already has."

The robot's eyes began to weep before them.

"I mean, what else are you going to do, huh?"

Frisk paused, face grim. They reached into their pants pocket and pulled out their phone. For a moment, they could nearly hear the confusion in the silence as Frisk opened up the options on their phone.

There, tucked away in the folder Frisk kept all those ancient apps that they'd quietly decided were too useful to delete, they found an app Alphys had put onto their first phone nearly two decades ago. Every time they got a new phone, they always took it to her to add this app back on.

Despite all that, I never thought I'd do this again.

"What on earth are you doing?" Alphys finally demanded. "This is a fi-"

Frisk pushed the button, shocking her into silence as the phone pulsed in time with something inside Mettaton. Frisk's soul, which had been glowing bright, shining red, slowly inverted. Then it went from red to yellow.

There was a moment of shocked silence.

"What the s-s-shit is that?" Alphys finally demanded.

Frisk glared. "This? It's a robot fighting spell I know."

"WHAT?"

Frisk lifted their hand, curling their fingers except for the index and thumb, making a finger gun gesture, and pointed it where the soul curved together, the tip on the other end pointing at Mettaton. Closing one eye, Frisk slammed their thumb down against the rest of their hand. "Bang," they murmured. A fast series of bullets shoot out of the tip of their soul; before Mettaton or Alphys had time to react, the bullets smacked into one of Mettaton's front legs. The leg buckled for a moment, making him scramble to correct himself.

"You—w-w-what the hell—where did you g-get that?"

They smiled wryly. "Just a little present from the best scientist I know." They paused and grimaced. "Flowey will be pissed if he finds out that I could do that this entire time and didn't do it only to make sure I didn't hurt anyone."

Somewhere in the heart of New Home, a solitary golden flower sat in front of the glowing display of televisions in a storefront. Gritting his teeth, Flowey watched as Frisk weaponized their soul.

"You're goddamn right I'm pissed! FRISK, you IDIOT!"

"Eh, maybe I'll get lucky and he won't find out," they muttered. They grinned again. "Now then, doc, what were you saying?"

Alphys growled at them. "Just fucking die!"

Mettaton's cannons went up, wiping the smirk off Frisk's face. "Oh shit," they mumbled and raced to get out of the way. The beam chased them around the room again, but this time, Alphys cut off the blast abruptly. Mettaton lurched his upper body forward and his large, bulbous eye began to glow. It fired laser bolt shaped bullets in quick succession, making Frisk run again.

Finally, Frisk got a chance. Raising their hand and soul again, they fired some bullets at the same leg as before. It buckled again and only just managed to catch itself at the last moment.

One more time ought to do it, they thought with satisfaction.

As if to spite them, Mettaton's soul—an odd, stitched together soul that left Frisk wondering if this was some odd cosmetic thing Alphys had done, or if there was some deeper meaning to the change—began to glow in the clear abdomen area. Tiny arcs of electricity raced over it, Frisk's only warning before a massive laser beam fired out of Mettaton's chest.

HOLY SHIT. Rather than dodge to the side, Frisk just dropped to the ground, wincing as their chin banged off the ground and the heat from the blast made their back burn. That was some anime bullshit if I ever saw some. Damnit, Alphys. The attack ended; Frisk wasted no time and fired off some shots from where they lay.

As they hoped, the leg shattered and clunked to the ground. Frisk allowed themselves a moment to grin, but it quickly ended as the legs just rotated around to settle even distances apart. All they'd done was make him into a tripod. "Ugh, really?"

Turning him into a three-legged monster certainly didn't seem to bother Alphys; without a word, she sent him charging straight Frisk.

Frisk hissed in shock, but couldn't get up in time to escape. One of Metttaton's arms grabbed them by the arm and hurled them across the room. They slammed into the floor, rolling from the force of impact until they hit the wall.

*HP: 18/30. Now would be the time to consider healing.

Picking themselves up, Frisk reached into their pocket and found the pack of cigarettes. Mettaton's arm cannons started to glow and whir again, so Frisk darted off, having to pull out a cigarette with their teeth as they ran for dear life. They got it lit and took a deep drag—instantly, the flame ate up the paper and it vanished into green light, slipping past their lips as they still sucked in air. Their wounds healed in an instant.

Heh. Nice.

"Nice," Sans chuckled, watching the human heal using one of the cigarettes he'd given them. He hadn't actually expected them to use it—hell, he mostly thought they'd just chuck them away at the first convenient area—but there they were, using it. It made him feel… helpful.

Papyrus wasn't so impressed. "God, they smoke too? And who on earth sold them healing cigarettes? I thought they only sold those things in New Home."

Sans froze before quickly raising the bottle of mustard to his mouth. "Yeah, that's weird," he mumbled before he parted his teeth and shot the mustard directly into his jaw.

His brother scoffed. "Disgusting."

*HP: 33/30. If they didn't leave you smelling like an ashtray, they might have been worth it.

Not now, kiddo, I'm trying not to die here. They made a run for it as Mettaton began to fire more magic shots from his eye. They didn't get far before they realized he was changing his pattern. Just as he finished his shots, he raised both his arms up so fast, already charged while they'd been too busy running to pay attention, and fired.

There was no time to dodge and too little room to duck. Twisting to the side to flatten themselves out, they raised their arms up to get them out of their way and braced themselves. The two blast penned them in on either side, but Alphys must have misjudged the distance because they didn't overlap, just singed their clothes.

When they attacked, Frisk grinned giddily. Holy fuck, I almost died. Again! Faintly, they were aware that the lack of sleep might have been getting to them as they turned and pointed at Mettaton. "HAH!" they shouted eloquently. "Missed!"

For a moment, they thought they heard an equally hysterical giggle come from deep in Mettaton's body, but then the chest cavity opened again and the two normal hands plunged into it again. Instead of yanking out more bombs, the hands yanked out a pair of chainsaws. They started up remotely and roared to life.

*Had to open your big mouth. Didn't you.

Shit. They bolted.

Mettaton surged forward in a direct line, swinging the chainsaws through the air. He reached the wall, but instead of turning around or stopping, he hopped up and bounced off of it before launching himself at Frisk again.

This time, they weren't so lucky.

The first swing missed taking off their head, but the second bit deep into their back as they turned to run. Pain erupted from their back, but their lower half went numb as the chainsaw chewed into their spine. They became blissfully ignorant of what the machine did to their back before it died. Frisk's soul wobbled and shattered.

In New Home, Flowey screamed out Frisk's name as he helplessly watched them die. In Snowdin, the two skeleton brothers held their breaths.

Then the pieces slammed back together.

*But it refused.

Frisk gasped at their new life while across the Underground, monsters did so as well. Even Papyrus's jaw dropped and Sans' bottle nearly slipped from his fingers. Seeing the soul refuse to die on a recording was one thing, but seeing it live was just as startling. In New Home, Flowey sighed in relief.

Frisk staggered forward, but whipped around to face Mettaton. Without a word, Frisk raised their booted foot and stomped with all their might onto the nearest of Mettaton's legs. The material—plastic? Cheap metal?—cracked and the leg wobbled dangerously. Frisk gritted their teeth and raised their foot again, but they heard their own thoughts screaming at them.

No! No, we do not kill. We do not strike in anger! We're better than that now—we cannot let him down! You might actually hurt Mettaton if you're not careful.

Frisk gasped and staggered backwards, off balance while Mettaton legs tried to correct themselves. Shaking themselves, Frisk raised their hand and soul and fired again. This time, the leg shattered and Mettaton nearly hit the floor as his legs tried to rearranged themselves again.

On the speakers, Alphys was stuttering too hard to curse properly—distantly, Frisk wondered if she was actually cursing on the air or if anyone was hearing the filth coming out of the speakers from the tv set. From what they could make out, she was having trouble with some sort of controls.

Taking a risk and saying a quick prayer, they spoke to Mettaton. "Mettaton, if you can hear me, fight her! Don't let her take your dreams away. Remember? We're going to go—all of us, together. We're going to get out of here, and when we do, you're going to be a great star." They took a breath and kept going. "But that won't happen if you don't fight her now."

Something in Mettaton's face flickered. The twitch made hope burn bright in their heart. So much so, they didn't notice Mettaton's right arm cannon beginning to glow.

Haltingly, the arm started to come up, the cannon shining brighter and whirring louder as he raised it. Frisk stared, rooted to their spot, afraid to move, to show that fear and weakness if it meant it might shake him out of his own fight.

"No one…" hissed a voice deep in Mettaton's core. Slowly, the elbow of the arm began to bend, away from them. "Keeps me…" The cannon now pointed directly down—straight at the right leg. "From what. I. WANT."

The cannon fired. There was an explosion and Frisk was caught in it; their body flew backwards and smacked off the ground, their head bouncing painfully off the ground. Their world was spinning and Frisk's stomach wanted to heave. Aw fuck, do I have a concussion?

*It would appear so. HP: 8/30.

Beyond them, there was a startled, happy laugh. Despite the agony it caused, Frisk turned their head enough to glance up at Mettaton. His right leg and cannon were gone, his left leg having collapsed, unable to support the weight alone. He used the rest of his arms to sit himself up, but he hardly seemed bothered at all. "I—I did it! Frisk, look, look at me! Do you see?"

Frisk managed a wobbly smile. "Greeaaaaat."

Mettaton cocked his head to the side. "Frisk? Are you alright, darling?"

"I'm fiiiine." They winced. "Just, um. I think I hit my head? Kinda hard. Now everything's all… diiiizzy."

"Is… is there anything I can do for you?"

"Mmmno. Just… gimme a minute. I… just need to collect myself."

"If you say so," he replied. He fell silent, but only for a moment. Then he began to giggle, escalating quickly into full-blown wild laughter. "Yes! Do you see this, Alphys? You can't control me anymore. You can't do anything to me anymore and now—now I'm going to get out of this hellhole and you can't stop me."

Please stop taunting the unstable scientist lizard. Frisk thought as they clenched their eyes shut and tried to will the room to stop spinning. They knew they needed to get to their cigarettes but the ordeal was too daunting right now.

Frisk's stomach clenched as the speaker system turned on again.

"Y-you think you've shut me out and won, have you? You ungrateful little shit, I made that body. You'd be nothing without my invention. Nothing but a meek, whining little coward still hiding in Waterfall, still getting bullied by your family. You think you're such t-tough shit? Well, Mettaton, how about this—your numbers are at an all time high right now. I think almost everyone in the Underground must be watching. So, how about we open up these c-caller lines and let you speak to your adoring audience?"

Frisk frowned. What was she up to? Their head hurt too much to open their eyes, so they resigned themselves to going in blind for a bit.

"C-caller, you're on the air."

"Oh… I am? Good. Mettaton, can you hear me?"

"I… yes! Yes, I can hear you." Mettaton's voice wavered before picking up and slapping a cheery tone on the words. "Congratulations on being my first caller on the show. How—how are you enjoying the show tonight?"

"It fucking sucks."

Wait, Frisk thought, heart skipping a beat. I know that voice.

"Is this your last show?" Napstablook asked, tone flat. "Thank god. You're so annoying. I'm just sad I didn't get to see the human kill you on live tv. That was lame. But hey, you can fix that can't you?"

"W-what?" Mettaton's voice was small and terrifyingly meek. Frisk forced themselves to look up at him; the poor robot looked so scared and alone, like a lost child.

"You should kill yourself now. That'd be a good ending. You sick, ugly freak."

"W-wait, Bl-!"

Dial tone.

"He hung up," Mettaton whispered, voice as broken as his body.

"Oh, don't worry," Alphys cut in. "We have plenty more people just waiting to talk to you. Next caller."

*You need to do something.

I know, but what? God their head hurt—they must have a concussion because the pain only got worse. Despite the motion sickness it gave them, they forced themselves to root around through their pockets, searching for those cigarettes.

Another caller came on the line. "Hey, Mettaton! You should do it—do us all a favor and kill yourself, you piece of trash!" Click.

Another. "God, you're so annoying! I can't wait until you're gone." Click.

Another. "Yeah, do it already!"

Another. "Just get on with it!"

*Frisk. HURRY.

I'm trying! Finally, they found the pack of cigarettes. They yanked it out and brought it up to their face, having to pause as they dry heaved.

"Are you really going to kill yourself? Awesome! Do it!"

"Finally, I won't to have to see you or your stupid face on my tv anymore. Kill yourself already!"

"Do it!"

"Just die!"

"You see, Mettaton?" Alphys' voice came back. "You're n-nothing to those people. You think just because you make a few tv shows or movies, that everyone's going to fall head over heels for you? Don't be s-stupid. They don't want you. They don't need you. All you are is a h-h-headache." She paused, and there was a faint click of something shutting off. It wasn't the speakers—maybe the microphones? "B-but you don't have to be that way, Mettaton. Just do your job this one t-time. C-capture the human. We can forget this whole thing happened. We'll just tell Overlord Asgore that your wires got crossed, that I can f-fix you. If you do it now, while everyone's watching, they'll forgive you too. You'll be the hero that got us all to freedom. Isn't that what you really wanted? To be everyone's h-hero?"

"Hero," Mettaton murmured. Frisk caught their breath and managed to look at him again. He was sitting, wilting towards the floor, his face hidden behind the curtain of his bangs. "I… just wanted to be loved by somebody… I thought… I thought…"

"Mettaton, just do this and all will be forgiven. Capture the human, take their soul to Asgore. Be a hero, Mettaton. You can do this, can't you?"

Frisk frowned and got one of the cigarettes into their mouth before realizing they couldn't remember where their lighter was. Cursing, they fumbled with their pockets again, idly sucking on the back end between their lips. At the movement, the cigarette spontaneously lit and then turned into green magic that flowed into their lips. Self-lighting cigarettes? Handy.

*HP: 23/30. Now. Get. UP.

Shakily, they sat up, but Mettaton began to speak again. "Heh. I-it's funny, but… I thought that… that yeah, I must be annoying some people but…" His voice broke and he grimaced. "I thought that maybe… there must be at least one person in this stupid place that… Ha. I… I really am an idiot."

Frisk's stomach dropped. "Mettaton, no. Don't, don't say that."

"Mettaton, do as I say. Capture the human."

To Frisk's horror, Mettaton began to make a sound that might have been a laugh or might have been a sob. "I… I really am an idiot. A waste of space. Even if I got out of here, I'd still only be a freak show, trapped in this hideous body. They were right about me."

Frisk picked themselves up but had to braced themselves as a dizzy spell made their head spin. "Oh, Jesus—M-Mettaton… wait. Just… just-"

"I… I should just disappear." Mettaton lifted one of his hands and started to reach up, to one of the buttons on his chest.

"Mettaton!"Alphys gasped. "W-what are you—don't! D-don't touch that!"

*STOP HIM.

Across the Underground, people tuning in held their breaths, watching in intense interest to see what would happen next. Even Sans had stopped sucking down on his mustard to watch. Besides him, however, his brother jumped to his feet. Sans watched in muted surprise as Papyrus hurried towards the stairs. He paused outside his door to turn and point at him. "Stay. Put."

Sans held up his hands silently and turned back to the tv to watch.

Frisk ran forward, but the world started to tilt again, knocking them off balance. Frisk had to put one hand down on the ground to catch themselves, but they shot forward anyway and slammed Mettaton backwards, hands scrambling for his. "DON'T YOU DARE," they nearly roared, yanking his hands away.

Above them, the lights that'd come on when Alphys started filming abruptly shut off, leaving them to gape at each other in the near dark.

Mettaton tried to frown at them, but his lips trembled too hard to show any sort of strictness. "Let me go."

"Look, whatever you're planning, don't."

Mettaton shifted, but only put a token effort into trying to pull his arms away. "Didn't you hear them? They want me to do it! I'd be doing them a favor. I-I could finally give them the show they really wanted to see…"

"Fuck those guys," Frisk retorted. "Who gives a shit what they think? Mettaton, don't you remember? We're getting out of here, together. You're going to go be a star with the humans now. You can't—you can't let those assholes make you forget what you really wanted."

He sobbed a laugh. "You don't understand anything! Don't you see? It won't matter if I get out of here. No human's going to look at me and see anything but… but a hideous monster. Alphys is right. I'm just everyone's headache. I'm no one's hero."

Frustrated, Frisk let go of his hands and instead grabbed his face, startling him. "Who gives a shit if you're a hero to them?" they snapped. "You said yourself that this is place is stupid and awful. The only way for you to be a hero to them is to be that awful too." They paused, feeling his body trembling below their grasp. "To be their hero, you'd have to change a lot more about yourself than just your body. But would that really make you happy? You'd have to give up humans and your dreams. Why be a hero to any of those people? You can be something better."

He blinked up at them. "Something better?"

They nodded. "If being kind is against the law, then fuck that law. Break the rules. If protecting humans is awful, then be the most wicked thing you can be. If be being a hero means killing others, then become the villain instead."

"The villain?" he murmured, eyes wide.

They had to smile. "Yeah… what else would be more fitting? You know what they say, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. You don't have to listen to those people anymore. Just keep your head up and you'll make it. Don't give up. Stay determined, Mettaton, and you'll be fine."

He looked at them for a long time before his face softened into a sad smile. "You're sweet. And kind." His smile faded. "But you don't understand."

Oh god, what can I say to get through to him? They thought desperately. Before they could open their mouth though, their phone began to ring. Annoyed, Frisk tried to ignore it, but Mettaton only sighed softly and glanced away.

"You should answer that."

At a loss, Frisk reached into their pocket and grabbed their phone, fairly sure that he wouldn't try anything as they were still practically laying on top of him. "Hello?"

"HUMAN!" Papyrus shouted on the other end. Frisk hissed and yanked the phone away; Mettaton glanced down at them, bemused. "Human, what's going on? The broadcast cut off!" Oh. Well, that explained why the calls had stopped coming in and the lights died. "Is Mettaton alright? Is he still there with you?"

Frisk blinked. "Uh. Yeah, he's still here." Mettaton blinked curiously at them.

"Oh—oh. Can I talk to him?"

Frisk frowned. "You're not going to start saying shit like everyone else, are you?"

"What? No! Just—just put him on the line, human!"

Bemused, but desperate enough to try it, Frisk pulled the phone away and put it on speaker. "Okay, go."

"M… Mettaton, are you there?"

Mettaton gave the phone a wary look. "Yes, I am. Can I… help you?"

"You're not going away are you?"

Mettaton and Frisk shared a confused look. "I'm sorry?"

"You're not really leaving the Underground are you? Or dying or—whatever. Anyway, you can't leave!"

Mettaton sat up to stare at the phone. "Why not?"

"You… well, you're the literally the only interesting person to watch. If you go, I might as well just sell the tv. You're my favorite actor, so you can't just leave! There's no one who stands out half as much as you do."

Aw, what a sweet thing to say. Why that's-

Wait. What was it that Sans said? They had to stop to hunt through their memories of their recent chat, but they quickly remembered.

"But yeah, besides that, Papyrus has his own- Uh, never mind."

"What? Papyrus has his own-? Wait, Papyrus has someone he likes too?"

*Wait.

Frisk's jaw hung open as they stared at their phone. It couldn't be—could it? Papyrus continued to jabber away, eventually starting to list, in detail, all his favorite scenes and shows he'd loved from Mettaton. Mettaton couldn't stop staring at the phone like it was about to change into some strange creature and scuttle away.

*Are you joking?

Oh my god. The edge lord cutie pie has a crush on Mettaton. Oh, god, that's adorable. Did my Papyrus have a crush on Mettaton? He called him sexy once, but then it turned out he didn't even know what that really meant. Oh wow, this is special.

Frisk glanced up at the robot's face and perked up. Mettaton was gazing at the phone with wide eyes, one hand pressed gently to his mouth, like he was trying to hold something back. Smiling, Frisk reached out and squeezed his shoulder. "You see, Mettaton? You already have a fan. You can't just give up now."

Mettaton looked up at them, smiled, and helplessly shrugged his shoulders. "I guess… well, I can't disappoint a fan."

Frisk grinned.

"Does this mean you're not leaving?" Papyrus asked, his gruff voice so cheerful that he almost sounded like their own Papyrus for a second.

Still, Mettaton chuckled. "Darling, they'd have to drag me from the stage before I give up on my dreams."

"Good! I, um, I look forward to seeing more of your shows then! Good luck, Mettaton!"

"Thank you, darling. Goodbye." The moment that Frisk turned their phone off, he reached up to swipe at his eyes. "Oh god, is my mascara running?" He smiled wobbly. "I look like a mess, don't I?"

"No, no," Frisk began, before frowning down at his lower half. "Um. Well, I'm mean kinda? But your make-up is immaculate."

"Oh? That's-" Mettaton began, floundered, and then had to laugh. "That's great, I guess."

Frisk tried to smile but it faded as they looked down at his lower half. "What are we going to do? Do… do you have some spare legs around? Uh, replacements at least?"

Mettaton's laugh turned bitter. "Me? You think she actually let me have spare parts on the off chance I try to do something like run off? I was hoping that maybe some humans would be able to help redesign me. No, the only one who can fix me is-" He stopped, face frozen. "…oh dear."

"What? What's wrong?"

"I… my batteries," he mumbled, his eyes already drooping shut. "During the fight and after… I wasn't paying attention. They're empty." He looked up at them, wide eyed and panicked. "D-don't leave me behind. Please, don't go ahead and leave me alone. I—I want to go with you. To the surface, I… I want…" Abruptly, he went silent and slumped over.

Frisk yelped and caught him before he slammed into ground. With a sigh, they rested him backwards and sat back. Now what could they do? It'd be heartless to just abandon him there, but they wouldn't be able to haul him through the capital as deadweight and certainly wouldn't be able to fight off Asgore with him. They fidgeted, struggling to think of something.

Like an answer, something slammed against the door in the back of the room, making Frisk jump. They turned just in time to see Alphys nearly fall into the room.

"Mettaton! Mettaton, you fool, don't you-" She paused staring at Frisk and his lifeless form. "I-is he? Did he p-p-press the button?"

Frowning, they leaned forward, putting their body between her and him. "No. He decided not to."

To their surprise, she actually sighed and sagged in relief. "So, his batteries just ran out?"

Frisk frowned. "They did."

Shaking her head, Alphys ran a hand over her face. "Easily fixed." She paused and then squared her shoulders before reaching into a pocket of her lab coat to pull out her hand cannon again. "A-alright, human. Back away from him and-and I'll let you go."

Frisk stood, ignoring their queasy stomach to take a stand before her. "He told me that he wanted to go on with me. I don't think he'd appreciate me abandoning him just to wake up to you again."

Alphys glared back at them, but the hand holding the cannon began to shake. "What does it matter to you what he wants? You just want to leave here. You don't care what happens to the rest of us. You want to go? Fine, go. Go and meet Asgore. When he rips your soul, no matter how strange it is, out of your body, then Mettaton will go free, as will the rest of us."

Frisk raised their chin to glare down their nose at her. "I'm not letting you take him, not if he's going to be your puppet again. No, he can come with me. I'll get him out of here if it's the last thing I do."

The scientist had to steady her gun by grabbing the handle with her other hand, but her arms never stopped shaking. Was it nerves, fear, or was she just not used to holding a weapon? How much LOVE did she have? Could she just be trying to bluff them? "Y-you think it's going to be that easy? You're going to, what, kill Asgore to take his soul and let Mettaton take one of the human ones so he can get through the barrier too? F-fat chance. Asgore's going to kill you." She paused and for a moment, her hands finally steadied. "I'm not going to let you drag Mettaton into that bloodbath."

Wait, is she… is she really worried about Mettaton? Is she trying to protect him? Frisk could only stare at her, baffled. Did she really care about him, or was she just worried she was going to lose a powerful pawn?

"Leave him to me. I can fix him. I can t-tell the Overlord that this whole thing was just an accident. I'll tell him that it w-was just a bug in the code. I-I'll convince him!"

Frisk frowned, gazing at her sidelong. "Fix him how? Rewrite his code to try and make him a human killing machine? To make him more obedient?"

Alphys glared, but her hands were shaking again. "What does it matter to you?! He's going to get himself k-killed at this rate—an-and you! You, you're just encouraging all this. You come here, and then you stir everyone up. At first, we were all so happy, so relieved because that meant we finally had the last soul. We were all going to be free. Undyne even started showing improvements and-" she paused, flinching at her own words before hurrying on. "But then you start going on about bringing down the barrier yourself. Ignoring the Law of 'kill or be killed' and encouraging others to do the same. That sort of idiocy gets people dead. Now you got the fools and the weaklings h-hopeful that maybe you can free them. That you can make it all b-better. What do you think is going to happen when you escape without freeing us, after you kill Asgore and l-leave us here? You're going to ruin what little hope monsters have left!"

Huh. She really believed that they were just going to abandon everyone like that. Frisk couldn't even find any sort of ire in them—it wasn't like she knew them at all, she had no idea how sincere Frisk was. They must look like the worst kind of interloper. Still. "Why are you so sure I'm going to leave everyone behind? I thought you said Asgore is going to kill me."

Alphys flinched so hard, she nearly dropped her weapon. "H-h-he will! As-Asgore's powerful. He'll d-defeat you, even with your bizarre soul."

Frisk frowned, resisting the urge to subconsciously lift their hand to their chest. Their soul was bizarre? What did that mean? Maybe it was a trick, a distraction. Shaking their head, they spoke. "He won't. But I'm not going to kill him, Alphys. And I'm not going to leave you guys behind. Even if most of you are violent and bloodthirsty and really—nonsensical," they muttered softly before speaking up again. "No one deserves to be trapped down here. Not even you." They paused and shrugged. "Even if you have tried to kill me multiple times. This place, it's still just a prison in the end."

Alphys's breath was harsh and her arms shook. "S-stop it! Y-you're not going to b-brainwash me, not like everyone else."

Goddamnit, I'm too tired and my head hurts too much for this. I gotta go. Frustrated, they waved at her. "You know what, you want to be stubborn? Fine. But I am not leaving Mettaton with you." They turned and crouched to pick him up. "He said not to leave him behind, and I'm not going to. Especially not with you."

"W-wait!" Alphys yelped; there was a clatter. When Frisk glanced back, they saw she'd dropped her gun. She looked down, horrified for a moment, but then she looked back to Mettaton and then at their face. "You can't take him—I need to fix him. If I don't get him fixed soon, his system might start to crash and his soul could be lost."

Frisk frowned. Was she lying? The never learned the literal mechanics of Mettaton's body, but could he really be lost if they didn't get him help right then? "That seems awful convenient, Alphys."

"It's Doctor Alphys, and it's not convenient at all! If you take him out of here, you're going to let him die before you can find anyone to fix him in time." She balled her coat into her hands. "I'm not going to let you kill him to suit your own ego."

Frisk laughed like a sharp caw of a crow. "That's rich coming from you."

Alphys growled and tossed her hands into the air. "I don't have time for this! Just let me take him back to my lab before he gets worse already!"

What if she's not lying? What if I really do get him killed trying to drag him out of here? I don't even have the strength to do this on my own. But, if Alphys tries to do something to him, I can't just let her take him alone. Frisk frowned. There was only one solution they could think of. "Alright."

Alphys blinked. "A-alright?"

Frisk nodded, stepping to the side. "Alright. You can take him back to your lab."

The scientist stared at them, like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Frisk obliged and turned to scoop Mettaton up. "I'm coming with you."

"W-what?! Absolutely not!"

"And I'm not leaving you alone with him, where you can do whatever you want to his brains. No, I'm coming too, and I'm keeping an eye on you." Mettaton's body was heavy as hell, but they managed to lift him into their arms and then slung his form over their shoulder. His arms hanging over the back almost overbalanced them, but they managed to keep themselves on their feet. They turned to Alphys. "Let's go."

Alphys gaped at them, hands grabbing desperately at nothing, but at last she just growled in frustration. "I don't have time for this! You want to come? F-fine." She scooped up her gun and pointed it at them. "But I've got my eye on you, h-human."

"Whatever." It wasn't like she was the first one to point a weapon at them today anyways. They stalked forward; reluctantly, she took a few steps back to let them out of the room. Frisk was surprised to see a trolley besides the door. When Frisk looked to Alphys, she gestured to the trolley.

"Put him on that and let's get moving. Go forward, then get in the elevator. It'll take us to the Lab."

Frisk tried not to look relieved as they slipped his heavy weight off their shoulder and onto the trolley. They took a moment to arrange him more comfortably before they walked around and began to push the trolley forward. Alphys pushed the button to open the doors, but before Frisk could walk in, they spotted something in the middle of the elevator.

"Frisk!" Flowey shouted, balancing awkwardly on his roots in the middle of the elevator. "I heard the elevator and I thought it was you but then—wait, what's with Mettaton?" Then he spotted Alphys and gasped. "You!"

"You," Alphys hissed back and started to raise her gun.

Frisk reached out and smacked it back down. "Don't you dare," they growled before they carefully pushed the trolley in. Once they were inside, they reached down and picked Flowey up. "Flowey, are you okay?"

He stared at them as they offered him his old position back on their shirt. "Am I okay? You—you idiot!" He snapped forward and grabbed the hank of hair that framed that side of their face with his mouth and began to yank. Frisk yelped but didn't pull away as he gave their hair another yank. He finally spat out their hair to keep yelling at them. "First you take forever to get through the Core, then I see you've managed to get into a fight with that idiot," he said, gesturing to Mettaton. "And now I find you wheeling around one of your enemies with another of your enemies!" Poor thing, he sounded so exasperated. "Just what the hell is going on?"

"It's a long story," Frisk sighed, rubbing at their scalp even though it didn't actually hurt, as Alphys hesitantly slipped into the elevator. She took out a key and accessed the control panel to reveal a secret panel, one with two extra buttons, both labeled Lab. She pressed the first.

Flowey shook his head. "I can't keep my eyes off you for a second, can I?"

The trip in the elevator wasn't very long, but it was excruciatingly awkward. Frisk was all too happy to step out into the murky shadows of the Lab. They waited as Alphys weaved her way through the trash and then gestured them towards a panel in the wall. Pressing a hidden button, the wall opened up to reveal a short passage. Walking through it revealed Alphys' working shop and living area. It was significantly cleaner in here—you could actually see the floor for one, even if the desk was full of junk like dirty ramen bowls and energy drinks. Alphys knocked this all aside and gestured for Frisk to put Mettaton on there.

Flowey actually helped Frisk to lift Mettaton, grunting as his vines wrapped around the robot and pulled him up. Once they had him securely up there, they stepped back and watched as Alphys rushed forward. Quickly, she started plugging wires into hidden ports in his body and booted her computer up. After a few moments, she sighed. "There he is."

Curious, Frisk glanced at her computer—there were numerous graphs and readouts, some doing nothing while others gave out steady readings. "So, is he okay?"

"He's fine," she grumbled, shaking her head. "Or, at least he will be." She rapped her knuckles against his forehead. "S-stupid idiot. Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

Frisk sighed, and shoved their hair out of their face. God, this day just felt like it was getting longer and longer. "Honestly, I wouldn't blame him if he did. Why would he want to come back here to you, if you were only going to hurt him again? Why come crawling back at all? Better to die on your own terms than continue on like he was."

"So he should have killed himself over pride?" Alphys snapped.

Damn. She has a point. Just to be contrary, Frisk shrugged. "When people don't have much, like, oh, body autonomy? At least they have pride." They paused, gaze going soft as they looked at the robot. "I've stared down some ledges of my own. The fall doesn't look so scary when the road behind you has been so long."

Alphys twitched and looked away. Had she ever looked down over the ledge before? Their Alphys had—she would have understood.

Frowning up at Frisk, Flowey's face was trouble before he shook his head and turned back to the doctor. "Why do you care?" Flowey asked. "I thought he was nothing but trouble."

Alphys turned to glare at him; he slunk down but kept glaring over Frisk's shoulder. At last, Alphys looked away. "He's a pain in my ass, but… but I didn't want him to d-die." She paused, and for a moment, Frisk could read sincere pain and exhaustion in her face. "He just… doesn't understand what it takes to live in this world. He's only going to get himself killed."

Frisk frowned and started to open their mouth, but then they heard an odd noise. Something moved behind them and began to pant, loud, wet, and coming from something huge. Their soul popped out of their chest. Before them, Alphys froze, eyes wide. Slowly, Frisk glanced behind them, stomach clenching.

A massive open hole gazed at them from the white furry face before them, oozing a sticky drool. Blinking, Frisk glanced down to see the familiar shapes of dogs beneath the giant's belly. Endogeny looked identical to the one in their own world. Flowey spotted the amalgamate and gasped, his body trembling violently.

Frisk only smiled. "Hello, big guy. Hey."

Endogeny paused and began to cautiously wag his tail.

"Frisk, what are you doing?" Flowey hissed, slinking down.

"Shh. It's fine. Hey there, buddy. Who's a good amalgamate? Huh? Is it you?"

Endogeny perked up, his tail flapping around like a flag in a hurricane.

Frisk laughed and clapped their hands before them. "It is you! You're the good amalgamate!"

Endogeny hopped in place, excited, rattling the whole laboratory as it did so. Mettaton shifted on the table and Alphys nearly slipped off her chair.

"Yeah, what a good amalgamate. Now, who wants a belly rub?"

Endogeny reared up just to flop down and kneel before them, like an oversized puppy. Which, essentially, it was.

"Yeah, it's you! Now, c'mere and let me rub your belly. Come on!"

Happily, the amalgamate surged forward, nearly knocking them over as it flipped onto its back and presented its belly. Frisk grinned as they bent and quickly began to rub its stomach, trying not to shudder at weird, almost gelatinous consistency of its body. As they rubbed, it seemed to fall asleep before quickly perking back up. Frisk laughed and kept scratching.

Behind them, something rattled, catching Endogeny's attention instantly. Turning, Frisk saw Alphys had produced a box of dog treats from somewhere—probably from her mess of a desk. Quickly, Alphys pulled out a handful of treats, waved them in the air so Endogeny could see them, and then quickly hurled them to the side. Without a moment's hesitation, Endogeny flipped over and slid across the ground like a goopy blob before quickly smacking its face hole down onto the nearest treat.

"What the shit is that?" Flowey squeaked from his hiding spot.

"Endogeny is an amalgamate," Alphys began, voice cautious. When Frisk glanced at her, they saw her staring openly at them. "How did you know that Endogeny is an amalgamate?"

Frisk stared back calmly. "Endogeny isn't the first amalgamate I've met before."

"Are you kidding me?" Flowey mumbled, still gaping. "I still don't know what that is."

"Amalgamates are monsters that were pumped full of determination," Frisk answered, still not breaking eye contact with Alphys. "It was to keep them from falling down. But it backfired and instead of saving them, it made them all melt together."

"Determination?"

Frisk almost frowned—how did Flowey not know this? But then, maybe their Flowey had talked to Alphys some during one of his many resets. Maybe this Flowey just hadn't had the chance or opportunity yet to try. "The will to live. It's the stuff that makes human souls persist after death. It gives us the power to rewrite time by saving and resetting."

Flowey gaped up at them like they'd handed him the greatest secret of life. "…determination… the power to reset…"

Alphys breathed hard. "How did you know that?"

Frisk considered their options. "I know because I was told it a long time ago, by the person who created the amalgamates."

Alphys flinched, her eyes huge. "Are… are you from the future? Do you have the power to reset time and space?"

Sighing, Frisk turned to face her dead on. "I did not reset. I don't know how I got here, but… but I'm not from here."

"Obviously."

"No, I mean, I'm not from this world. I—I don't know how to explain it, but this world is nothing like the one I knew." Inside, they could feel something breaking as the words eagerly spilled from their mouth. "The world I knew was kinder and more hopeful. This one is filled with violence." They sighed. "Even the monsters here are different from the ones I knew before."

"Did," Alphys began, voice shaking. "Did you meet another Alphys before?"

Frisk gazed at her, trying to decide if she was going to believe them or not. They decided to risk it. "Yes. She and I… we were friends." They paused, smiling. "We used to hang out, watch her shows together. She, uh, she could really talk your ear off if you gave her the chance when it came to her love of anime."

Alphys squeaked. "How did—nobody knows I like anime. I didn't even tell Undyne that yet!"

Frisk blinked. "What, really? How on earth did you hide that from her?"

Alphys flustered. "I'm not hiding it from her, I—I'm just busy, okay?" She paused and put her head in her hands. "Oh god, you're really from another world. Ugh, that makes so much sense—the reason why your data was so unlike the others, your power." She paused glancing up at them between her fingers. "You… you've seen something like this world before. Do you know what's going to happen?

"Not exactly. This world's too different for me to be sure. But I think it has the same potential." They paused themselves before deciding to ask her something that had been bothering them for ages. "Alphys, in that world, you created the amalgamates trying to save monsters from falling down. Why have you done so in this world?"

Alphys flinched, but she didn't immediately answer. Instead, she looked down, pushing her glasses aside so she could rub at her eyelids. "T-the problem began ages ago. After Asgore announced the 'kill or be killed' edict, monsters slowly started to build up LOVE—their, uh, their level of violence." Rather than interrupt the scientist, Frisk decided not to announce they already knew what LV was. "At first, monsters hesitated to attack to kill unless thoroughly provoked, but the older the monster got and the more they fought, the higher their LOVE grew. With more EXP, a monster could survive longer, could protect their own better." She frowned. "The longer they lived. But, the longer they lived, the more they fought, that also meant that they saw more friends and family fall. LV went up, but hope… hope went down."

An old memory of Sans' low HP floated through Frisk brain before they could quash it. They could feel Chara's curiosity at the edges of their mind, like they were trying to peer through the curtains, but it was too far from sight. Frisk forced themselves to change tracks, but that only led to them wondering if this world's Sans also had awful HP.

Alphys sighed, rubbing her snout like she had a headache. "Monsters began to fall down, slipping into comas and dying. Our population rates went down as monsters kept dying but less children were born and that only meant more hope was lost. All together, there's less than three hundred monsters left in the Underground to date."

Frisk's throat closed up and they felt Flowey shuddered against the side of their neck.

The amalgamate snuffled wetly at Alphys side, seeking more treats. The scientist only gently shoved it away, so it wandered off to search elsewhere.

"So," Alphys began again, reaching for her tools. She got to work on Mettaton's chassis as she talked, working on getting it open. "Asgore ordered me to look into… solutions to the hope problem. I don't know w-what he was hoping I would find. I… I thought at the time that my best solution would be work with the near dead. People c-complain less when it's the near dead and not actual dust. Dust seems too blasphemous, I suppose, but the near dead? Just a-another mouth to feed that can't defend itself." She pried into Mettaton's circuits, pulling chips and examining them before either stuffing them back or tossing aside the fried ones. "I had a theory about determination. If monsters without hope fell down, maybe more determination would help. And it did, at first. Then they melted together and became, well, that." She gestured at Endogeny.

"I see," Frisk murmured, trying to sound thoughtful. At least the dogs looked almost normal—well, normal for Endogeny. It made it easier if they thought of it as just a bunch of dogs hiding in one big costume. The amalgamate saw them paying attention and walked over. Without a second though, Frisk reached out and offered it their hand. It paused but began to wag its tail after it gave their hand a good sniff. Frisk patted its head; it promptly flopped onto the floor so they could rub its tummy again. "So, it had some unexpected effects. How did you react?"

"Mortified, honestly," Alphys grumbled; when Frisk glanced at her, they noticed she was glaring at their reflections in one of the bits of warped casing. Alphys tossed it aside. "I had just been about to a-announce to Asgore my breakthrough. I would have gotten a raise," she sighed.

Frisk grimaced. "A raise?" That's what she was worried about?

"I-I could do a l-lot of things with a raise!" Alphys snapped defensively. "I could fund research for my p-private projects, I could build more new weapons for Undyne, and-and the amalgamates need to eat. With extra money, I could—I could…"

What is she dancing around? Frisk frowned solemnly. "…you could help Undyne?"

Alphys' flinch spoke more than their fierce anger in her face, but it fit the fear behind Alphys' eyes. Frisk could see the retort on her face—("Nothing is wrong with her!")—but then it died abruptly as something else crept into the scientist's face. Frisk prayed that it was hope. "U-Undyne is… Without a doubt, Undyne is the strongest monster next to Asgore, no matter what anyone else might boast. She's the fastest, the strongest, she's the Captain of the Enforcers… the longest lived too." Alphys grimaced and went back to tinkering with Mettaton's body. "She puts up with a lot from those bozos, trying to keep them from killing each other or the rest of our dwindling population. F-fucking Asgore has us killing each other off left and right, don't know what he'd thought would happen…"

It was the first time they heard say a word against her king. The human let Alphys grumble for a bit before clearing their throat loudly.

Alphys jumped, shooting them a nervous look before pausing and going back to work again. "S-she does what she can, but she has a lot on her plate. There's lots of fighting… lots of killing." Alphys paused. "Lots of ways to lose hope."

Frisk's heart lurched into their throat, choking them for a moment. "Undyne… she's not…?"

Alphys shot them a dirty look. "She is not falling down," she snapped, voice full of venom. Her shoulders heaved with her strained breathing, but she settled back down and went back to work. "She… she is in danger though. Undyne has always had an unusually high concentration of determination in a monster, which means she could melt easier, like the amalgamates. But, with low hope, that means she has to be even more determined. Add the stress from her job. That all means that she's… she's v-very…" She paused, taking a deep breath and bracing herself. "Susceptible. She can fight that off," Alphys went on, pride touching her voice for a moment before softening again. "But it hurts. So her hope suffers. Which means that she has to be more determined, which just makes everything worse." She paused and began to dig through her box of circuit boards and wires. "I built her that new armor, the weapons for a reason, you know. Not just because the armor's climate controlled—or that it's rigged with sensors to warn her if she's letting her hope get too low. Not just because the laser eye is cool.

"She… she gets excited when I make her stuff. Like a kid on their birthday. It's when her hope jumps the most." She fiddled with a circuit between her claws. "She says 'this is great, Al, no one will try something with me now'. Because, they do, they always do, but the new stuff, it'll keep them away for a few weeks. …she's the only one who ever thanked me for making them something."

Frisk could see something genuine and soft in Alphys' face; she might have even forgotten Frisk was there. It made Frisk hesitate to speak for a moment. "Alphys, when did the first amalgamate happen?"

Alphys froze and looked at them. "Um. Two… three months ago?"

"And when was the most recent one created?"

At first, Alphys didn't answer. Instead, she glared thoughtfully at Frisk until she tensed, realization dawning in her eyes. "Two weeks ago. How did…?"

"You said you have to worry about having enough money to feed the amalgamates. That means long term planning on your part, also that you probably know how much you need to keep feeding them from past experience and it's a lot more than you are equipped to handle now."

"…you really are a sly one."

Frisk shrugged and tried a kind smile. "Reading people, picking up details—it's part of my job." They paused at Endogeny began to whine at them due to their lack of petting. Frisk quickly began to correct the oversight. "Alphys, why are you hiding the amalgamates from Asgore?"

Alphys flinched. "I—I'm not hiding them from anyone! I… I," she paused, face burning before she finally got the courage to speak. "I'm protecting them, okay?! I c-can't turn them over to Asgore!"

Frisk kept their outward reaction to an owlish blink, but inside their heart sang. There's still some kernel of goodness left in you yet. Oh, Al, you had me worried. Still, they kept their face calm. "Why not though? You've created new life out of the dying, a special breed of unkillable soldiers. Wouldn't that just be perfect for Asgore?"

"They. Are not. SOLDIERS!" The circuit board snapped between her fingers.

Frisk paused as Endogeny flailed and righted itself, gazing up at Alphys and trembling.

It took Alphys a moment, but she caught her breath and slumped back into her chair; once she appeared calmed, Endogeny cautiously waved its tail before laying back down. "They're not soldiers," Alphys sighed. "They're… they're like babies. All they really want is food and affection. I… I did try once, to see if how they would react in battle." She shook her head. "They don't try to cause damage unless they're very hungry, and even then you can tell they're not trying that hard to hurt you. And they don't take orders for s-shit. You couldn't take them into battle. If I told Asgore about them, it'd still only be an embarrassment."

"So, why did you keep making them?"

Alphys finally met their gaze and was quiet for a very long time. "I… I've been doing experiments. At first, I tried to extract the determination back out of them. I… I thought that maybe… but it didn't matter." She slumped. "I can't get it back out of them. Then I decided to see what the limitations of the injections were. Turns out, you can revive fallen down monsters but it takes a tiny dosage. But there's always side effects." She paused, thoughtful. "The last one, they're a funny one. That one has no will at all to fight, but they like looking after others. I've fallen asleep down there a few times and whenever I do, I wake up to a blanket tucked around me. I checked the security cameras, so I know who it was."

"Alphys. Why are you still making them?"

"B-because I was hoping I could find a cure for Undyne." She glanced down at the broken circuit board, grimaced, and then tossed it down to join the rest of the garbage on her desk. "And… and this way the monsters haven't really died. I can't save them, but at least they aren't gone."

"How do you know they're happy like this though?"

Alphys shot Endogeny a flat look as the amalgamate rolled on their back and began to wiggle for Frisk to pet their tummy. "That one looks pretty damn content."

Unbidden Frisk had to smile; they hid it as they turned to rub their belly. "That's cause it's a good little monster, yes it is!"

Endogeny happily oozed liquid out of the whole in its face. Flowey made a tiny noise of disgust.

Alphys gave a ghost of a chuckle at the antics of the amalgamate. "There's no p-protecting them if I let anyone else know about them. Asgore will try to control them, then he'll kill me once he realizes he can't. Th-then Undyne will…" she paused, shutting her eyes in pain. Her breath hitched in her chest. When Frisk looked up at her, she could see that Alphys' eyes were wide with panic. "Undyne will…!"

Frisk hesitated only a moment before reaching out to press their fingertips against Alphys' knee. The monster jerked, staring at the fingers for a moment before looking up into Frisk's eyes. As kindly as they could manage, Frisk smiled. "Undyne's hope will give out."

Alphys shut her eyes and nodded.

Patting Alphys' knee, Frisk waited until the scientist would look at them again. "Alphys, how much longer do you think Undyne can last without you making a breakthrough?" The panic in Alphys' eye was answer enough. Frisk stood. "Look, there's only way I can think that will help—raise her spirits. And the quickest way to do that is if I talk to Asgore and convince him to repeal the edict."

Alphys looked at them like a bird had just popped out of their mouth. Although, considering some of the amalgamates and their abilities, that might not have been that strange of a sight to her. "How?"

"Leave that to me. But I will do it. I'm going to change his mind about it. And then I'm going to break the barrier. That should put some pep in everyone's step, I think."

"B-but… how on earth are you-? Oh, why am I bothering?" she shook her head, pressing one hand to her cheek as she stared up at them. "You've been doing i-impossible things this entire time. Why should this be any different?"

Frisk grinned. "Miracles do happen. I've seen 'em."

Alphys paused, studying them. "How do you know?"

Time to put the cards on the table and make the bet. "Because I've seen the barrier break before. I've seen monsters walk free."

Flowey twitched hard and lifted himself out of their shirt, but it was Alphys that was looking thunderstruck.

"A-ah… are you sure you didn't come from the future? D-did you reset and come back here?"

Frisk shook their head. "I didn't reset. And I'm definitely not from this world's future. But I have faith that this one can still reach a happy end. This world still has some goodness left in it." They paused, glancing back to see Flowey's wide eyes staring back at them; they smiled down at him. "Yeah. Still good."

Slowly, the flower gave them the tiniest smile back.

Alphys breathed deep and slow, staring up at them with wide eyes. Finally, she spoke. "Take the elevator and go back the way we came. Go back to capital and do not linger. Head east. You'll find Asgore's castle. Just… just go. Prove to me that you can make this miracle happen." She jerked her head in Mettaton's direction. "I'll stay here. Get him fixed. Show him your m-miracle too."

Frisk smiled, their chest tight. "Will do." They paused before smiling again, sheepishly. "But um, first. Do you know where I could rent a room for the night? I'm exhausted."

"Frisk," Flowey groaned. "Are you kidding me?"

"Hey, I've been running myself ragged, I've barely ate all day, and I had to fight a robot. I need to at least get a nap in."

"Take the elevator downstairs," Alphys said. "There's a bunch of beds down there. Stay to the room with the beds and you'll be fine. The tall man won't let the others harm you, but you should be fine anyway. I already fed them."

Was this a good idea? Hell, I'm too tired to think of anything better. "Thanks, Alphys."

"FRISK," Flowey shouted into their ear, making them wince. "SERIOUSLY?"

"Uh, yeah. C'mon, Endogeny! Let's go downstairs and have a nap." They paused and glanced back at the doctor. "Oh, and Alphys? While you're fixing up Mettaton, you might want to rethink his design. Maybe a little less Silent Hill and a little more… eh, Mew Mew Kissy Cutie."

Alphys' jaw dropped. Frisk turned and gestured to Endogeny before they began to walk away again. The amalgamate happily followed after them. Alphys watched them go, slowly shaking her head before turning back to work on Mettaton's body. After a long moment, she jumped again as a voice broke the silence.

"Looks like you're having a busy day for visitors, Alphys," Sans said idly.

Alphys whipped around to glare at him. "Sans! How long have you been there? Were—were you spying on me?"

"Easy there. Just dropped in to see what new data you got," he answered, still staring at where Frisk had left the room. He blinked and turned to face her. "You look like shit."

Alphys tensed, painfully aware that none of the defenses in her room were activated and to do so would be super obvious to Sans. "I've had a rough day. What's your excuse?"

"Feisty," he quipped before nodding at Mettaton. "So, is he dead?"

Alphys bristled and rolled her chair around to block his view of the robot. "He'll be fine. Just some b-bad connections."

"Oh? Is that what happened?" he drawled, walking closer. "Made for a hell of a show tonight."

"What the h-hell do you want, Sans?"

His forehead shifted, making it look like he was raising invisible eyebrows at her. "I wanted to see what data you managed to collect from the fight." He didn't add that he'd gone through hell trying to sneak past the wards that covered his home. After all that trouble earlier, he was going to have find a way to sneak back in again. At least whatever Papyrus had done in his room, it'd left him happy and cackling. He wouldn't notice Sans was missing for awhile yet.

Alphys froze before turning back to her computer. She brought up the footage feed and several diagnostic programs. After some fiddling, she got the readouts to sync up and began to play them all. Sans walked over to watch over her shoulder as the fight progressed, glancing at the data all the while.

"Well, one thing's for sure. It's not determination that they're radiating all the time. It's magic." Alphys frowned and checked another data program. Whatever she found there, it gave her pause. "But it's not coming from their soul."

His static grin twitched as he leaned in closer, cursing his vision but not wanting to correct it around Alphys. "It's coming from their… body? Are they some kind of strange monster then?"

"No, that doesn't make any sense. If they were, they would have melted a long time ago from all that determination."

He paused. "A spell then? Has someone cursed them?"

Alphys tapped her claws against her desk. "Too beneficial to be a curse. Some kind of aiding spell then." She paused and moved faster through the footage and readouts. "But there something faintly magical going on here and here—they were talking to someone again. But that magic, it's not out of the realm of possibility that it's a human thing."

"Does the magic on their body match the signature from when they talk to the other being?"

Alphys compared the two and sat back, expression neutral. "It's not. So, whoever… t-tried to help them? Whoever spelled their body, it's not the person they're talking to. Oh, look!"

Sans looked at the footage and flinched when he saw that chainsaw bite deep into Frisk's back. He glanced away before he could see that agonized expression on their face again. "What about it?"

"Here, look. It's when they're soul re-fuses."

Rather than look at the footage, he looked off to the side. There was a familiar graph, showing their determination. Alphys was right; the determination wasn't showing up beforehand but when their soul re-fused, the spike jumped to the top of the map. He bet Frisk easily had the highest recordings of determination of any human they'd ever studied, perhaps even before the war. "Well, it's not outside magic that heals them. That's coming from them alone."

"Or maybe not," Alphys muttered, flipping to another program. Sans watched testily as she fiddled with the program. At last, she sat back. "No. It is. This is just… b-bizarre though."

"What?" he nearly snapped.

She glanced up at him, eyes wide behind her glasses. "I think I know who—or at least what they're talking to." She tapped her screen. "They've got another soul piggy backing off theirs."

He stared for a moment. "…what?"

"I think Frisk's p-possessed. Probably by another human." She pointed at her screen again. "Look. It's faint, but there's a s-second source here."

Sans rocked back on his feet. "They absorbed another human soul? But humans-"

"Can't absorb another human soul, no. But I don't think they a-absorbed it. I think the other human was already dead. Soul possession is rare among human souls, but even we have records of human ghosts latching on to other humans in an attempt to take over that body. It never works, not really, not like a human and monster soul absorption. The two souls conflict too much. So, whoever they're t-talking to, it's probably another human and one that was dead before it latched onto Frisk."

Sans paused, glancing back to the graphs. "Is that where they're getting all that determination from? Is the second soul lending them some?"

Alphys frowned and started flipping through the data again. After some time, she gave up. "I… d-don't think so? I mean, logically it would make sense, but despite the fact the soul has definitely latched on to them, the souls are too far out of alignment to feed each other, even if their soul color does match. In fact, the other soul doesn't seem to have much or maybe even a-any determination of its own. It's probably been dead for awhile."

"So, what, Frisk just naturally has the power to resurrect themselves if they die?" He paused, frowning at the graph. "Why on earth does reviving themselves require more determination than resetting time itself?"

Alphys grunted. "I don't know, you're the q-quantum physics major. I specialized in soul magic and robotics."

This was all starting to seem a little too wild for him. If this was a book, he'd sit it down for a while to go do something else. Probably nap. He needed to change the subject; he glanced at Alphys. "Speaking of soul magic, wasn't that your spell they used during that fight to turn their soul yellow and attack?"

"Ugh," Alphys grumbled, smacking a hand to her face. "Oh, s-s-shit. I was going to ask where the hell they got that spell." She paused. Maybe this was just another sign that the human was telling the truth—maybe they really were from another world, one in which that Alphys had given them the app that she'd been developing for months in secret. She hadn't even shown it to Asgore yet. She looked to Sans. "Do you still believe that nonsense about other worlds, other t-timelines?"

Sans cocked his head to the side, sending shadows looming over his face, his red eye burning bright in the socket. "What's that to you?"

She grimaced. "Well, um. Y-you might have been more right than you know?"

Sans blinked slowly. "Tell me."

Across the Underground, talk and gossip went late into the night. Everyone had seen the fight on television, and everyone had an opinion. First came the scorn—what a loser Mettaton was, what a weakling the human was, but at least they'd put on a good show. Hopefully, that was the end of Mettaton's career, but then a few admitted that they'd tune in again, just to see what would happen if the robot did return.

After that though, the conversations grew quiet. It'd been a hell of a show, but what had happened at the end? Had the human rushed forward to kill Mettaton, gain his EXP before he offed himself? Or had they run forward to try and save him? No, that couldn't have been it.

Could it?

The talk turned into whispers, spoken only in the soft silence in dark corners, behind hands. What if the human had saved him? What if the human really was on their way to Asgore?

What if they broke the barrier?

What if they all got to go free with this human leading them to the surface?

What if they were the angel of the prophecy?

The Underground went quiet near daybreak, silently waiting to see what would come of it. Either Asgore would reap their soul and transform into a god or this human would somehow find a way to save them all.

The monsters waited on the human, for the first time allowing hope into their midst, eager to see where it would lead them. After all, they had nothing to lose.

A/N: I'm sorry I'm late-this chapter was the largest yet, but no matter what I did, I couldn't fit everything I wanted to into it. This chapter is super rough. I rushed editing it. If you see any errors, please please tell me so I can fix and edit them fast.

Metttaton Neo design comes from a mix of Fell!Mettaton EX's form and a fanart on tumblr, showing their own interpretation. I'll put a link for it on my profile if you want to see it. It's really awesome looking, go check it out.

Geust: There's some already surprisingly dark stuff in Undertale, so I didn't think it stick out that much. Hell, if you call Undyne at the one waterfall at the dump, Undyne recounts the story of how she first met Alphys which STRONGLY suggest that Alphys was about to commit suicide when Undyne wandered by. I got rid of the Muffet fight mainly because in the long run it'd already be a long narrative detour that wouldn't add much to the plot. Also, it's the one fight that you can instantly end in the game just by eating a bake sale product in front of her, so it was perhaps the one fight I could get away with not showing. I'm afraid the MTT Resort and Burgerpants got the chop mostly because of time and the fact that it seems in the game that Mettaton only recently remodeled it. Fell!Mettaton doesn't have as much pull as the Mettaton from the game, so it wouldn't make a ton of sense for him to have control of it. It is a shame though. As for your theories, you were right! Mettaton really didn't want to harm them AND we got some backstory and Endogeny. Unfortunately, I don't know how much more times I can sneak Undyne in, but we'll see what I can do. Thanks for reviewing!