After that incident with Undyne, our group booked it towards Alphys's lab and on the way, some of my allies only then tried to ask me a question.
"So... you're saying you knew about us before-" Saura was about to ask before I shushed her with a finger to her lips.
"A certain weed is close by, so no talking," I frowned. It was true, though. Flowey was nearby, and he was actually viewing us from behind. We walked the whole way to Alphys's lab and inside of it, me looking around and seeing that the tv was viewing me... and it also had two separate feeds, with one watching the other group heading to Undyne's place. And Alphys wasn't around... but from looking around the dimly lit lab, I didn't see any signs of bad things. And when I checked the trash? No note. Good, I thought. That meant that Alphys wasn't getting threatened by Flowey. And then, when we got to the point with the lab elevator?
"OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD!" shouted Alphys as she rushed out of the elevator in shock, her breathing in and out in a rapid fashion. "I can't believe it! Not only is Lemonbread starting to remember who they used to be, all four parts... but e-even Kanako is starting to remember! I need to find the humans immediately! Th-This is a breakthrough!" she said, me gawking at that as the lights then came on and Alphys rushed right towards me... and she ended up tackling me into the ground, my face being caught right underneath her chest.
"U-Um... ow... what did I..." Alphys asked as I tapped her on her side and she then looked down. "EEEK!" she squealed in shock as she rolled off of me and into the wall upside-down. "I-I'm so sorry! I-I d-didn't know you'd get here s-s-so fast! O-Oh god, that was so embarrassing! Please tell me the cameras didn't see that! A-And..." Alphys said before then looking at Chara specifically. "A-A-And... oh... my... God..." she gawked as she then timidly went towards the child and she looked uncomfortable. "It can't be... you're alive?" she asked.
"You... you know about me?" Chara asked.
"Y-Yes... I do... ahem... I uh... Could I possibly ask for your help with a uh... a-an experiment? I-It needs done, quickly... I-I'll accompany you... b-but if we do this... p-please don't be scared, c-children... it's uh... j-just follow me..." Alphys said with concern as she then went to the elevator immediately and simply waited halfway through the door.
"This is... new..." I admitted.
"So what's going on?" Zephyr asked as we then went to the elevator and, upon going inside of it, we then proceeded down by at least 5 floors, even underneath the magma of the volcano! And when we reached the area, we went outside of the elevator and we saw that the place looked... just as creepy as I expected. The walls were dingy and grimy, a thin, visible fog filled the air around us, and the smell of must was everywhere.
"S-See... I need help with the ones who had p-previously fallen down... t-the test subjects... judging by you having a Knowledge Soul... a-and the original child being here... I feel that it can finally happen... we can finally free them..." Alphys said.
"Uh... free them? What do you mean?" Mary asked. "This place is kind of spooky... I don't like hospitals... this reminds me of that very place..."
"T-This is my lab... M-My true lab... where I experimented with... the souls..." Alphys said with a sigh as we then reached the first security door, where it was opened up... but there was also a popato chisp dispenser. And there were a total of... 8 food trays that were all laid on a nearby table. She then got at least 1 chisp bag for each one and then she got her phone out. "Please, don't freak out when you see them... they're more scared than you are..." Alphys said as she then played a tune on her phone at full volume.
"~Anything is possible when you're falling in Mew Mew Kissy Cutie love!~" the song on her phone played... and she played it three times. And after doing so... well, three different creatures soon appeared from out of her cell phone... followed by the others shortly appearing after via their own ways.
"O-Oh god... w-what's going on?" Courage asked in fear as the first trio appeared, the Memoryheads, all three of them looking the same and each looking to be partially digital, since they came through Alphys's phone. And they sounded like they were making dialup noises. The next to be scared was Mary when a certain character appeared out of thin air, a slender bit of white that had a blue center that was partially fractured.
"W-What is this place?" she asked in fear and at a soft volume. Then came Reaper Bird, which is when Saura backed herself to the wall.
"W-What happened to them? This is so messed up!" she said in fear. And in response.
"YOU'RE MESSED UP!" shouted Lemonbread in at least ten different ways all at the same time before a single voice spoke at a softer volume. "please... help us..." said a very shy and squeaky voice from the collective.
"W-Was that... was that Shyren's sister?" Antoinette asked in shock. And then a whole slew of white pellets appeared from the ventillation that soon formed into the giant Endogeny.
"What in the world is going on?... I'm getting scared here, and I shouldn't be..." Zephyr said in fear. And then, So Cold came in as a misty vapor before slowly morphing into the form of the most depressing of the lot.
"s...no...wy..." Mrs. Drake said in such a weary voice, her body in a melty state, yet still stuck together to all of her collective.
"Oh no... M-Mrs. Snowdrake... what happened to her? Moreover, what kind of experiments were you DOING here?" Courage asked in fear.
"T-This... is what experimenting with souls gets you..." Alphys said with tears in her eyes as the different Amalgamates then started to eat the chisp bags... in their own bizarre ways.
"You... you injected them with our Determination, didn't you?" Antoinette asked, which Alphys sighed and nodded at. "I see the problem immediately from this... you stole Determination from souls that don't have nearly as high a tolerence for it. So each of these subjects seem to have gotten a side effect from each soul type... and looking at them, I see exactly which ones are which... I've seen this before on the surface," she said with such intellect that it made me frightened. "Who are the ones that are slightly digitized?"
"T-They're the memoryheads... I tired to preserve the spirits of Doctor Gaster's followers... w-with the soul of Courage..." Alphys winced.
"I see... because of them being confined to the Determination of a courage soul, they've become slightly unreal, confined partially to the nearest avaiable source to take energy from. And it seems that happens to be your phone... and what of Kanako?"
"She was infused with Integrity f-from her mom... so I thought infusing Determination from your soul would work to make her alive again..."
"Quite the opposite. It severed her from the timeline temporally, meaning she's only slightly here and slightly a paradox in time itself... she'll be the trickiest to heal up, because of that... and what of the... bird one?"
"Reaper Bird was made up of monsters f-from the Ruins... they were found outside the door to Old Home... a-and they were strong warriors from the Royal Guard under Chujin's command... I thought that they could be back to normal from their sense of Justice, hence the Justice soul's determination..."
"Ugh... I have a feeling Clover won't be happy about that," Chara frowned. "This is my expertise, since I had a study on Justice souls when I was... alive... when someone is infused with Determination from a Justice Soul, they become the parallel to those of Kanako's time paradox and become a space paradox. They can literally travel to anywhere they wish in the planes of existence, but since we're in the barrier, it's reduced drastically... now they're stuck here in the Underground and they're so scared, they don't dare leave the lab..."
"I... I didn't know... w-what about... L-Lemonbread?" Alphys asked. "They were given the P-Patience soul's DT..."
"That's a tricky one. Patience has a wide variety of side effects from its Determination... but in this case, all their minds fused into one contingency and if one wishes to speak their mind, they have to fight tooth and nail to say their piece, which results in a massive migraine for the poor things after... and they also became partially liquid in the process, hence why they arrived in the form of a puddle," Antoinette frowned.
"Endogeny?... Kindness..."
"It seems that for Endogeny, barely anything has changed, which is a blessing. It seems they're just timid as a whole collective of dog monsters. You're extremely lucky on them, doctor. If they had any of the nasty side effects of being an amorphous blob of pure hunger or agitated at any kind of loud noise? You'd be in a lot of danger."
"A-Ah... I... So Cold... Snowdrake's mother... she has 17 monsters including herself... and she's the one fighting for control the hardest all t-t-the time... perseverence..."
"The saddest side effect of all of them. Whoever in the collective got the most of Perseverence will always be in control, but constantly in a fight to stay sane and stay solid... how long has she been fighting like this?"
"Almost... 89 years..."
"Oh my god... then she's a trooper of historic proportions... the most for a human with this affliction was 45 when I was alive... she must really want to see her kid again..."
"s-snow... can... i... see... h-him?" she asked, me sighing at that.
"Well, doctor... this is going to be tricky... My soul was able to absorb the gunk out of the Royal Guard during the incident in Snowdin... but I have no idea what it's going to be like with these guys... and as for Kanako, we should focus on her last, as I'll need the help of Antoinette, the integrity expert," I frowned.
"I think I know how to solve all of them, and it all correlates to your soul, the Knowledge soul," she said, me looking at her in surprise. "If you simply touch them, you'll be able to absorb their gunk out of them as well as have them remember everything about who they used to be, therefore rendering the DT extract completely moot. But Kanako will require both of our skills, since she was injected into her soul with my Integrity... we need to do it almost at exactly the same time, or she'll turn to dust instantly..." she said, me nodding at that.
"Then we need a user of stopped time to assist in that," I said. And Chara stepped up to the plate.
"I uh... I think I know how to do it, but it'll take a lot out of me... I'd need to be carried everywhere for a good hour or so if I went through with that," she said with a frown.
"Okay, then I'll go ahead and start with the Gaster followers..." I said, me then touching my hand to the trio of heads... and shortly after touching the trio, they then got all of their gunk out of them and enter me... before they then reformed in a flash of light into the very followers in the game's FUN categories, the only difference being that they all had color instead of being black and white.
"I... Is this... am I dreaming?" asked the one who held a head in his hand and he pinched it with his other one. "Ow! No, that hurt... it's the Deltarune..." he said in shock as he, the bird guy, and the gingerbread man then went to me and smiled.
"We thank you... we thought we'd be stuck in the Void forever..." the bird guy said with a smile.
"You guys were there, too?" Zephyr gawked.
"Yes, we were..." the gingerbread man said. And then the other Amalgamates looked at me in extreme intrigue, none more so than Kanako and Lemonbread.
"CAN WE GO NEXT?" Lemonbread asked before a single lone voice spoke after. "please... i want to see shyren again..." Shyster's voice said with a squeak from the mouth.
"Yes... I'll go in order of name afterward, but leave Kanako for last..., she'll need double help," I said, Kanako then looking down and at me, her current form looking like a thin and tall version of her original form, but with her body in a slug-like state. As in, very moist and dripping white goo on the ground as she stood in place. But after doing it for all of them, I got a bit tuckered out from the work that my soul must've been doing for them. And now, after all the others agreed to go to the elevator in turns to wait in the lab house until further instruction, it was time for myself, Chara, and Antoinette to work together for Kanako.
"Okay... when you stop time, be sure to only do so for Kanako. Given she's been trapped in limbo for awhile, it'll take all of your concentration to do so. As for mine and Scarlet's parts in this, we need to make sure we touch her almost simultaneously. Otherwise, she'll advance in age rapidly until she turns to dust," Antoinette said.
"Okay, 3, 2, 1, STOP!" Chara shouted, Kanako being completely frozen in time, and me seeing that it managed to actually make Chara strain in doing so. I then placed my hand diectly next to Antoinette's so we were side-by-side on our hands, wrists, and fingers. We then focused and pressed our palms directly into the blue center of Kanako, where, since we did it at EXACTLY the same time, we then gawked at how a lot of blue liquid left Kanako and went into Antoinette as the Determination went into me... and just like the others, after a bright flash of light, Kanako was right there standing in front of us! But there was only one thing that was different about her, which she noted from looking at her hands and then at us.
"I'm... not a kid anymore?" she asked in concern.
"It's been hundreds of years since you were injected with Integrity, so you've matured despite being a time paradox," Antoinette said, me looking at the others with a smirk, seeing that Alphys was stunned speechless while Chara then fell to the ground and breathed in and out in tiredness. "Sleepy... can one of you carry me, please?" Chara asked, the one to do so being Kanako, who looked at me with a smile.
"I thank you, young humans, from the bottom of my heart. I knew you weren't bad as a whole like I was taught... but I never expected that momma's experiment would fail on me..." she said with a sad sigh.
"Your mom, Ceroba? She's going to be ecstatic to see you again. We need to meet up at Undyne's place to talk to her about certain things... do you mind, Alphys?" I asked, her sniffing at that.
"I am... I can finally tell everyone the truth... and it can stay this way forever... let's go home," Alphys smiled as we then went to the elevator once again and, after getting to the lab, we saw that all the other test subjects were chatting it up like it were a party. Alphys tried to get their attention, but being that she was so quiet and nervous, someone else had to step up. So, I poked to Alphys's phone, her then nodding as she then played the same tune as before, which I could only guess was the Mew Mew Kissy Cutie theme. They all looked at her right after.
"U-Um... everyone... I want to apologize greatly for... all the things I put you through... thanks to Scarlet and his friends, you all now have a clean bill of health. Go back to your loved ones and tell them that everything is okay, and that the humans were the ones to save you, not me... and if they ask why it took so long... just please don't paint me as the bad guy?... I just wanted to help you all..." Alphys said with a sad frown as I then simply gave her a hug, her sniffling and hugging me back, follow by all the others in my group joining in... along with two telekinetic hands that joined in.
"Wish we could join in, but we don't have arms," Zephyr smiled.
"Just don't start singing about vegetables and we'll be good," I said, which made almost everyone confused. But Alphys got a blubbery smile on her face.
"Are you a... Veggietales fan, then?" she asked.
"Huh, I'm shocked you knew what I was talking about!" I smirked at her.
"I have all the movies saved on my laptop... only the good ones, none of the ones where they don't talk religion," she smiled happily.
"And that's the good thing. Can't beat the Silly Songs or the good jokes," I chuckled.
"I wish I could ask what you two are talking about, but we do need to go home... it'll be a long walk back for me and my group," Mrs. Drake smiled, which I nodded at. All 17 of her collective as well as the members of Endogeny were to go back to Snowdin, which was a long walk from Hotland.
"I can't wait to see my sister again! She'll be so happy, we'll be singing all day and night!" Shyster smiled in excitedness as she swam through the air.
"Quick question before we all head out. How does a fish swim in the air?" I asked.
"Magic, duh," said Isaac, him being Aaron's brother and him being a burgandy color for the horse with a purple fish tail as opposed to Aaron's brown fur and green tail. "You kids are tough, I'll give ya that. Keep it up, and you might just be able to destroy the barrier all at once!" Aaron smirked. We then proceeded to leave the place and I then decided that, while the others would go via the normal route, the rest of my group including Kanako would go via the River Person.
"Tralala, do you wish to go someplace?" they asked, me nodding at them.
"Take us to Waterfall, please? In between Undyne's and Gerson's," I smirked.
"All hands and feet inside the boat at all times," they said as we then swam quietly through the waters... and I then got an idea, since I did not sense Flowey anywhere right now.
"Hey, Chara? This seems like a perfect time to surprise your mom, doesn't it?" I asked, her gasping at that and looking at me in concern.
"Y-You want me to tell her?!... W-What if she faints? What if she has a heart attack?" she asked.
"Monsters don't get heart attacks, silly. I learned that in school," Saura giggled. Chara then frowned in defeat as I then dialed the number that was preset in the cell phone and handed it to her, which it rung only once before Toriel picked up, which I smiled at how I could hear through it from afar... somehow.
"Hello, Scarlet, dear. How are you doing so far?" Toriel's voice asked.
"U-Um... h-hi mom," Chara said. And when Toriel heard that voice? I could hear a bit of heavy breathing on the other end, before she spoke.
"I-Is it you?... C-Chara-Lee?" she gawked. And that made me gain a big dumb smirk at that.
"Y-Yes... it's me, mum... remember when there was a voice that was speaking to Scarlet?... And how her memories would increase around him until it revived her in due time?" Chara asked.
"Y-You were that voice?"
"I'm sorry I didn't say anything... I didn't want to involve you... I've already done enough to worry you..." Chara sobbed.
"My child... I don't care about your suicide... I don't care about your plan with Asriel to get souls from the humans at the time. And I don't care that you never told me about any of this until it was too late... I'm just happy that you're alive and that you're safe again... oh, if only I could reach through that phone, I would give you the biggest hug in the world!" Toriel said with a blubbery voice on her end.
"Mom... I'm sorry... I... I can't find the words... I'm just so happy..." Chara cried, which meant it was time for me to give her an awkward hug, which she sniffed at after. "A-And... remember Scarlet? He wants to join the family, too... kind of like a second dad to me... or in this case, my third one," Chara sniffed.
"Um... father? But isn't he about your age as of now?"
"I don't know if we told you that or not, since it's been awhile, but I'm actually 23 years old and placed in a teenager's body that isn't my own. Sounds dumb, huh?" I asked, which she smirked at on the other end after I heard her blow her nose with a tissue.
"I'm going to be heading out of the Ruins soon, then. Would you rather I take my time and take the straightway? Or come as fast as possible while taking the long way?" Toriel asked, me smirking at that.
"I think we'd appreciate it if you could do the first option... feel free to take some rest stops along the way if you want to, we're doing the same thing," I smiled at her.
"Okay... I'll meet up with you eventually, little ones... I can't wait to see the look on Asgore's face. If he saw Chara right there in front of him, he would HAVE to halt the plans, he'd just HAVE to!... Until we meet again, loves," Toriel smirked as she then hung up and Chara then collapsed into me and hugged me tightly.
"T-Thank you... I was so nervous the entire time..." she cried, me smirking at her as I hugged her back.
"All this crying is gonna make us tired if we aren't careful, sniff," Mary said with a sniff at the end of it. We then finally arrived at our location and the River Person spoke up.
"No more crying in my boat. I don't want the inside to get too wet," they said.
"Sorry, River Person. We'll try to refrain from here on out," Kanako smiled at them
"You ready, Kanako? Because we're about to meet your mom again," I smiled at her.
"No, not really... but it needs to be done... please, try to help me if you can. I'm so nervous..." she admitted.
"As are we," Antoinette smirked as we then went towards Undyne's place... and I had to hope that it'd go okay.