Flowey studied the computer screen with mild disinterest. Mettaton had not been happy after some of his subtle suggestions landed them with more than a few complaint letters from disgruntled parents. He smiled just thinking about it. The best part was that he'd ended up being such a hit with the kids that all Mettaton could do was beg him not to give them anymore stupid ideas; removing him from the show at this point would be PR suicide.
"Have you picked anything out?" Alphys called from the floor above.
"Not yet." He called back, then resumed staring at the list of titles on the monitor - it was his turn to pick out an anime to watch tonight.
Alphys had been a reluctant host to start with - jumpy, forgetful and stuttering constantly. After the first couple of day's she'd calmed down considerably... especially after he'd agreed to watch anime with her. The very first time, Alphys had barely been able to contain her excitement; it'd been quite something to watch, it almost made up for the cartoon itself. Flowey grumbled and scrolled down the list. Anime was something of a mixed bag, sometimes he found shows with awesome fight scenes, giant guns and flaming laser swords! While other times it was cutsie, lovie-dovie 'power of friendship' type deals. Alphys preferred the latter. Thankfully, Undyne had saved her own list of favorites, and she had far better taste in cartoons.
Shame he'd already seen everything on her favorites.
Flowey clicked off the list and went back to the desktop and its awful Mew Mew Kissy Cutie wallpaper. He sighed, then shook his head; he shouldn't fault the lizard too much, she HAD been kind enough to make some useful modifications to his pot - modifications that let him move about without having to burrow underground. She was a very competent engineer... he just wasn't getting anywhere on the whole 'soul' topic right now.
"By the way, these came for you today." Alphys' voice drifted from the descending escalator.
Flowey quickly put the list of anime back on the screen as she approached. She set a pile of letters down beside him, then smiled meekly and checked the screen.
"D-don't spend too long picking something out, or we won't have time to watch it." She stammered, then hurried back upstairs.
He glanced at the letters, then back at the computer. Looked like more mail from the little fan club Papyrus had made for him. It was... flattering, he supposed? A little weird, but then again he'd come to expect that sort of thing from Papyrus by now, so it just became kinda amusing.
After a few seconds passed, Flowey crawled to the edge of the desk and checked that Alphys was definitely out of the room. Nothing, not even a sound. He went back to the desktop... he probably shouldn't be doing this. He knew in his mind that this wasn't the right thing to do, but he was too bored and curious to pretend to care. He opened up a folder labeled 'Confidential Notes' and began looking through the contents...
Stories, most of which featured Alphys and Undyne. He skimmed over a couple... well those were certainly... well they were something! He thought he should be feeling some sort of embarrassment for Alphys, but the mixture of confusion, disgust and amusement was probably enough emotion to deal with anyway. He closed the folder and opened the next one down... Aha! So she DID have other anime on her computer! He set one to play on low volume just to check...
... This didn't look like any anime he'd ever seen before. It was... he... what was he even looking at? What were they doing to each other?... This didn't feel right. He closed the video.
Maybe this wasn't the best idea he'd ever had... Flowey was about to give up and go back to the list of regular anime, when another folder caught his eye labeled 'DT Research'. This time he clicked cautiously... no video files. There were a lot of notes though... drawings, lab entries and some pretty complicated looking equations. He skimmed over a few of the pictures first, but they only brought up more questions. Hmm...
-ENTRY NUMBER 1: This is it... Time to do what the King has asked me to do. I will create the power to free us all. I will unleash the power of the SOUL.-
The breath hitched in Flowey's throat and he almost jumped when a knock sounded from the front door. He put his head down and continued reading.
-ENTRY NUMBER 2: The barrier is locked by SOUL power.. Unfortunately, this power cannot be recreated artificially. SOUL power can only be derived from what was once living. So, to create more, we will have to use what we have now... The SOULs of monsters.-
"H-hang on, I'm coming!" Alphys called from above while scurrying down the escalator and simultaneously tying up the belt around her fluffy pink dressing gown.
-ENTRY NUMBER 3: But extracting a SOUL from a living monster would require incredible power... Besides being impractical, doing so would instantly destroy the SOUL's host. And, unlike the persistent SOULs of humans... The SOULs of most monsters disappear immediately upon death. If only I could make a monster's SOUL last...-
The door slid open, Sans stood on the other side holding a large bag of dog food.
"Oh thank god Sans, you're a lifesaver!" Alphys grabbed the bag with both arms and hugged it to her body, but the size was too much; she fell forwards and almost hit her head against the tiled floor.
"oops." Sans said while catching her and replacing his hands under the bag. "sorry alph, forgot you were a lightweight."
"T-that has nothing to do with anything!" She looked indignant, but her face quickly flushed with embarrassment. "B-but I would appreciate it if you could help me carry this inside."
"sure, no problem." He shrugged and the two picked up the dog food together.
Flowey turned back to the computer screen.
-ENTRY NUMBER 4: I've been researching humans to see if I can find any info about their SOULS. I ended up snooping around the castle... And found these weird tapes. I don't feel like ASGORE's watched them... I don't think he should.-
Unease pricked at the base of his stem... he didn't like the idea of Alphys snooping around his family's old things... he wondered what she must have found there...
-ENTRY NUMBER 5: I've done it. Using the blueprints, I've extracted it from the human SOULs. I believe this is what gives their SOULs the strength to persist after death. The will to keep living... The resolve to change fate. Let's call this power... "Determination."-
... Human souls? So more humans did fall, then his dad... his dad did... ha, ha... there was probably a good explanation for this...
-ENTRY NUMBER 6: ASGORE asked everyone outside the city for monsters that had "fallen down." Their bodies came in today. They're still comatose... And soon, they'll all turn into dust. But what happens if I inject "determination" into them? If their SOULS persist after they perish, then... Freedom might be closer than we all thought.-
"speakin' of dogs, are you going to the wedding?"
"W-wedding? I-I didn't know there was any wedding I-"
"hey, don't worry about it."
-ENTRY NUMBER 7: We'll need a vessel to wield the monster SOULs when the time comes. After all, a monster cannot absorb the SOULs of other monsters. Just as a human cannot absorb a human SOUL... So then... What about something that's neither human nor monster?-
"Thank you Sans."
"like i said, no problem."
"H-hey Flowey, did you make your choice yet? If you take any longer I'll have t-"
-ENTRY NUMBER 8: I've chosen a candidate. I haven't told ASGORE yet, because I want to surprise him with it... In the center of his garden, there's something special. The first golden flower, that grew before all the others. The flower from the outside world. It appeared just before the queen left. I wonder... What happens when something without a SOUL gains the will to live?-
"Oh my god."
He couldn't stop shaking, he could barely control his vines. Slowly, he turned to find Alphys watching him, to see all the color drain from her face.
What happens when something without a SOUL gains the will to live?
"Y-" He swallowed, barely able to breath let alone speak. "Y-you... y-you c-c-created m-me l-like this?"
Deep down he'd known it was likely true... but seeing the evidence there for himself he... he didn't know what to think. He COULDN'T think. All he could think... all he could feel... was a blur. It was like his head had suddenly filled with cotton wool.
"Flowey I..." Alphys trailed off, sweat dripped from her brow and her hands shook violently. "Flowey I-" She tried again, but the air hitched in her throat. She swallowed, then took a deep breath and exhaled slowly while choosing to stare at the floor. "Flowey, I need to show you something..." Still refusing to look him in the eye, she reached out for his pot and placed it on the ground. "I... I should have shown you this a long time ago."
She walked slowly across the room to the thick metal door with the bathroom sign beside it; the door slid open with a loud clunk. Flowey followed to find an elevator instead of a bathroom, but that detail barely glanced his mind. Alphys stepped inside and picked a floor. They waiting in silence as the doors closed and the soft hum of electromagnets announced their departure. he was glad of the silence.
Soon the lift came to a stop, and the doors shuddered open. "W-well... here we are." Alphys announced shakily. "Your birthplace."
Flowey crawled outside, the mechanical legs of his modified pot clinking against the metal floor tiles and echoing off the walls. The lights were dimmed and the air was cool and still, giving the hallway an eery chill, as though it were abandoned. Though clearly it was not.
Alphys led the way, and Flowey continued to follow her. He didn't really feel like he was here anymore, he felt distant, like he was watching himself from somewhere else. They passed a number of displays filled with green text and down more long corridors. A vending machine, a set of beds, a... room filled with potted golden flowers...
"I'm sorry you had to find out this way." Alphys said, letting her gaze drop to the floor once again. "The king wanted me to find a way to break the barrier, but the souls we had weren't taking to the normal flowers, so I... I guess you already know what I did?... To you?" He nodded slowly. "B-but the research turned out to be a dead end. After everything went wrong, I thought... I thought i'd managed to contain everything."
Contain everything...? Something went wrong...?
A cacophony of barking and howling reverberated off the walls.
Alphys jumped. "I-I need to feed Endogeny. Please wait here, i'll be right back." She scurried away, leaving Flowey in the room alone.
Something peeked around the corner - a huge white form, its body melted, undulating and shifting constantly in a sickening, unnatural way. The vaguely dog-shaped entity shambled through the doorway, leaving a trail of slime in its wake. Whatever this creature was... it was not an ordinary monster. Soon it was towering over him, dripping froth from a large orifice on what could only be amused to be its head. Struck dumb, Flowey stared into the gaping maw as drool slid over his petals. Eventually something primal kicked in, and he bolted for the door.
They were everywhere now; the melted horrors. He saw them as he ran, out the corner of his eye - the hallways resonated with their cries. He would not stop, all he knew in this moment was to run. Run and keep running until...
Dead end.
No no nononono...
He looked about frantically for another way out, but all there was to this room was a TV and some video tapes. Thankfully the howling quietened, and Flowey took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.
That thing... THOSE things... were they what remained of the other monsters?! The other VICTIMS of Alphys' RECKLESS experiments?! The mistakes that she needed to CONTAIN?! He could have been... he could have been like them.
Trapped down here, going insane out of his mind in this miserable lab!
If she hadn't put the flower back... if she had kept me locked up here... HOW LONG WOULD IT HAVE TAKEN BEFORE ANYONE WOULD HAVE FOUND ME?!
Ha... hahahahaha.. ha... ha...
She... she...
He paced up and down, fighting against the anger building in his stem. Eventually he walked outside, and stopped at the edge of a pit.
Useless, stupid lizard! I HATE HER! I HATE YOU, ALPHYS! I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!
"I HATE YOU!" He yelled with more passion than expected and recoiled as his own words echoed off the walls. A rabble of indecipherable voices rose up in response, but quickly died down again.
Tears began forcing their way into his eyes, but he grit his teeth and fought against them. No, not again. He looked up to notice a structure in front of him, hovering above the abyss. It was ominous and skull-like... it made the air around feel colder, but somehow, he couldn't look away. A terminal on the wall labeled it as a 'DT extraction machine'.
DT... determination... 'The will to keep living... the resolve to change fate.' Extracted from... human SOULs... 'Time to do what the King has asked me to do.'
Flowey's eyes flew wide open. He hauled himself out of the pot and threw it aside; smashed fragments skidded and clattered across the ground as he ripped up the tile beneath and pulled himself under. But he didn't care. He found an elevator shaft and followed it upwards, emerging in the castle... then he headed for the garden.
... Yes, there he was. Standing oh so peacefully among his flowers in the last rays of evening sunlight. How predictable.
"YOU!" Flowey screamed, barely able to contain his rage.
Before Asgore could respond, vines had wrapped around his throat and horns. He gasped as he was dragged to his knees, made level with his attacker's eyes which he gazed into with a dumb look of shock and confusion.
"YOU KILLED THEM!" Flowey screeched, scrunching his eyes up against the tears that were refusing to be held back. "AFTER... AFTER WHAT I DID... YOU WENT AND KILLED THEM ANYWAY!" He pulled Asgore closer and snarled. "WHY?!... WHY?! DID I LOSE MY LIFE FOR NOTHING?! What was the point in any of this If I... I... if you..." He broke down, the vines around his father loosened as the strength drained from his body.
There was a long moment. Asgore made no moves to escape, he just stared into Flowey's face with an expression that couldn't be read. "I think you must be confused." He said softly. "Please just calm down, then we can talk about whatever it is that has you so upset. Everything is going to be alright"
Flowey hissed and pushed him back. "No it's not! Why would you even say that? What makes you think any of this is alright?! I..." He gasped. "I TRUSTED YOU DAD!"
Before another word could be said, he ducked underground and furiously dug away. He was fuming, boiling over with rage and hate and... this... this was too much... too much to all take in at once. He didn't burrow far, just far enough to be away from Asgore - to not have to see the stupid king's face or hear his stupid excuses.
He surfaced into a room of grey stone, it was cold and had no windows; must be the basement. He was so tired, so drained by everything that he wanted nothing more than to collapse then and there and pretend this was all just a bad dream... or maybe he'd done so already.
Because that line of stone boxes was looking horribly familiar...