Chapter Text
A very familiar feeling filled you. Determination. It had been five months since the monsters had returned to the surface, and Christmas was in just three weeks. Already there were decorations going up around the neighborhoods, lights twinkling from trees and wreaths hung up on doors. People were flooding the stores looking for gifts for their family and friends. You weren’t one of them.
The idea had come to you so suddenly that morning just after you’d woken up. You had jolted upright and practically ran to the bathroom, hurried through your usual routine, and thrown on your clothes, before rushing out the door with a quick goodbye and kiss to your mother. Now, you were sprinting down the street, weaving between people and poles and garbage cans as you raced to Undyne and Alphys’ place. You executed a particularly nice dodge as you slide beneath the clasped hands to two people and launched yourself over a trashcan, landing in a smooth roll and instantly back on your feet. You supposed all that dodging in the Underground had helped you greatly when it came to your reflexes. Undyne’s attacks especially had been useful for that sort of training.
It was with heaving breaths and legs that burned from such exertion that you arrived outside of their new home. It was a large, upgraded version of Undyne’s fish house in Waterfall, blue and orange with actual scales covering the walls and roof. You stopped for a moment to catch your breath, and then rang the doorbell. It took only ten seconds for Alphys to come open the door. Usually, you would spend time on greetings and hugs, but now, you grabbed the clawed hand and pulled her down the hallway and into the elevator down to her lab, gesturing excitedly with one hand the entire way.
“Woah, Frisk!” she said as you dragged her along. “What’s so urgent?”
You hit the button and the elevator doors closed.
“I have,” you panted, still slightly out of breath, “an idea.”
“For…?” Alphys asked, puzzled.
“Sans’ present,” you said promptly. “I need help.”
She blinked. Her wings, ruffled from the sudden movement, smoothed themselves out and twitched a little closer to her sides.
“Why me though? Wouldn’t you rather pick someone else that knows Sans better? I wouldn’t know what to get for him…”
You shook your head.
“Your help,” you insisted. “Making something.”
Her wings opened up.
“R-really?!” she asked, her face brightening. “Okay! What are we doing?”
You paused. You took a moment to consider what you were going to say. After all, it wasn’t an everyday, easy task that the two of you would be undertaking. Still, you wanted to do this for him. You were determined to.
“Making wings,” you said a little breathlessly.
You offered her a bright, hopeful smile. She looked confused.
“Wings?”
You pointed at hers and ran a finger down one of the feathers.
“He needs them,” you said.
Understanding dawned on her face. She looked horrified at first, then sad, and then finally uncertain.
“He lost them,” she murmured. “But, Frisk, y-you know it’s impossible to um, to get them back, right?”
You nodded.
“‘S why we’re making them,” you explained.
She gaped at you.
“Oh. Oh gosh Frisk, this is...this is really big.”
You hesitated. It was a massive project, one that would take many hours and intense amounts of dedication but…
“Please,” you said.
She worried her lip. Then she took a deep breath and gave you a small smile.
“Okay!” she said. “Let's do it!”
You were reminded of another time, when she had thought you asked her out on a date. A little giggle escaped your mouth as you remembered all the events that had unfolded: the roleplay, the dramatic confession, the somewhat comical launching of Alphys, and Papyrus’ arrival. Of course, that date had been what led to the events of the True Lab, but everything had worked out in the end. You took her hand as the elevator dinged! and opened its doors. She led you down the many hallways of her new lab, until she stopped outside of a door labelled “Storage Department.”
“We’re going to need supplies,” she told you in a business voice.
It wavered for a moment, most likely at the daunting task of creating an actual pair of wings , but she seemed to steel her nerves. She pushed open the door and you stepped inside. Immediately you were hit with a variety of smells, ranging from rubber, to metal, to something strangely fruity, and the familiar scent of instant noodles. Boxes lined the walls in neat stacks, and near the back of the long corridor was a haphazard pile of scrap metal.
“We’ll need synthetic fibers,” Alphys muttered under her breath. “Something to cut them with, and a fine tipped glue gun! Yes, we need that too...and bone. Possibly bone. No, definitely bone. We can line it with fibers, to mimic muscles that he can stretch...they’ll have to be easily infused with magic though. It has to be magically flexible, so that we can tune it to his magic…oh, we’ll need that ...but that’s really rare - there’s only one of them known to exist and we can’t create another one...”
She suddenly stopped and jerked upright from her rummaging.
“Frisk?” she called. “Do you - do you think...I mean, it’s hard to say but...do you think he’d like to - to fly?”
She bit her lip and fiddled with her fingers nervously as you gawked at her. Flying…you hadn’t even considered that. You had wanted him to have a pair of wings again, wings that he could move. Despite the fact that they wouldn’t be able to reflect his emotional state, he would have them. They could act as a layer of defense, defense that he needed in case anything were to happen. If he could fly though…
You nodded emphatically at her. Yes, he would love that. You were sure of it. It would easily fit his lazy nature, flying everywhere instead of walking. And you knew that he had blue magic, magic that could affect gravity. You knew he he had cyan magic as well, magic that could affect space, even though it was very slight. Perhaps there were shortcuts in the sky that led farther than any of the small ones down on the ground did. The possibilities were endless. He would love it.
She nodded back at you.
“Okay, so we need - we need something really rare for this,” she said. “If you want wings that he can use, that he can fly with, we have to make sure it can tune to his magic. You know how monsters are made of magic and dust? Well, whatever wings we make him have to also be made with his magic. So to put his magic inside it, we need a - a crystal. There’s only one that’s ever existed, but we know - we know where it is.”
She paused, suddenly looking rather tense. You tilted your head questioningly at her.
“It’s back in the Underground,” she muttered. “In the CORE.”
You frowned. The Underground had been empty for months now - no, not empty. There was still somebody down there, somebody that, while you wished you could help him, would never accept your friendship. Somebody that had hurt Sans beyond belief. You wondered if he would stop the two of you if you went down to retrieve the crystal.
Alphys looked uncomfortable. You thought you knew why; the CORE had been where she had made some of her worst memories, lying to you and then finally confessing with tears in her eyes, and also where Mettaton, one of her first friends, had nearly died with the battery power loss.
You took her hand in yours again.
“I’ll be with you,” you said simply, offering her a smile.
She smiled back.
“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, we’ll be there together.”
But then it hit you: she had also created Flowey. She must have known that he was still down there. Sympathy filled you and you drew her into a hug. You couldn’t imagine the pain she must have felt, having to face her creation, the creation that had meant to be something beautiful that had warped into a demon. You had long ago made your peace with the fact that Flowey simply wasn’t Asriel, but it seemed Alphys still hadn’t. You patted her back comfortingly, and drew back, pointing at the boxes.
“Right. We need synthetic fiber,” she told you. “It’s white, looks a lot like string, and should be wrapped up into bundles. It’s somewhere along this section of the wall-” she gestured “-in the boxes.”
You went to work instantly, picking a box and beginning to rifle through it. You heard shuffling behind you as she moved to a different part, presumably to get the other supplies. The two of you spent roughly an hour in there, pulling out various items and tools until quite a large pile was amassed at your feet. You reached up and tucked your hair back behind your ear from where it had fallen and faced Alphys, offering her a bright smile. She grinned back, and you felt happiness bubble in you at seeing her confident. Her wings were folded against her back, but you could see them shimmering in the light. She bent down and you did the same, stacking items as best as you could in your arms. Alphys was using her wings to support the sides of her pile, and you both marched out of the storage room. She led the way into a room across the hallway labelled “Construction.”
Inside was a large, rectangular table that sat in the center of the room. The room itself was pleasantly decorated, not at all like the plain, somewhat clinical feel of the hallways and storage unit. The floors were a warm brown, and when you looked closely, you could see faint traces of magic. You deduced that they must have been there to protect the flooring. A counter wound its way around the room, cabinets lining its underside and rows of shelves on the back wall. A simple portable stove sat in the corner.
The scientist laid down her load on the counter closest to the door. You followed suit and shook out your arms. She spread out your collection and began to sort through them, laying out piles of tools and materials. A sizable pile of synthetic fiber was stacked up against the wall.
“Frisk, could you please bring that over to the big table?” she asked you as her claws worked deftly.
You nodded and complied, taking the fiber in small bunches and laying it out. It was a clean white, and when you tugged experimentally on a string, you found it to be stretchy. Other bundles of fiber were thick and hardly flexible at all. As you waited for Alphys to finish setting up tools on the counter, you played around with the fiber, testing out the flexibility and elasticity of each bundle.
“Okay,” she said, as she carried over a small pile of tools. “We have to build a prototype first, make sure it works the way wings should. I’ve already got a design laid out in my head - I just gotta draw it out into blueprints. Next, the feathers. It’s gonna take a lot of time because we have to make each one separately. There’ll be hundreds of them.”
She waited, as though expecting you to change your mind about the project. You simply nodded and flashed her a thumbs up.
“So after that, we need to build the frame of it,” she explained. “I’ll see if I can get Papyrus to conjure up some bones for us to use; his magic is similar enough to Sans that it should mold together just fine. These fibers-” she gestured to a specific pile of bundles “-will be imitations of muscle so he can move the wings. They’ll go onto the bone structure and also connect to each feather so he can move them all. Then, we have to get the crystal.”
She stopped for a moment. You patted her hand comfortingly.
“The crystal is what powers the magical part of the CORE. It’s very magic flexible, but if we can attune it to Sans’ magic, it’ll allow us to connect the wings to Sans body.”
She stopped again, a slight grimace coming across her face. You nodded for her to continue.
“Believe it or not, that’s not the hardest part,” she said. “We need to get a part of Sans’ magic. Not the magic he uses - his actual magic. A part of him.”
You froze. Alphys must have seen the panic that started across your face because she hurried on.
“But,” she rushed, “if he kept any of the feathers that were left over when he lost his wings, even one, then it’ll work. We just need one. Even a hair from the feathers will be enough.”
You exhaled. That would be no easy feat. You weren’t even sure if he kept any of the feathers, if he was able to after Flowey removed his wings. If he did, you weren’t sure how you would convince him to give them to you. You worried your lip, mirroring Alphys earlier.
“I - I’m sure you’ll be able to get it,” she tried to reassure you.
You gave her a grateful smile, then pointed to the materials laid out before you.
“Right,” she said.
She had a look on her face much like yours. It was determination, some form of it. You cracked your knuckles and shared a smile with her.
“So, I need you to grab that piece of wood over there in the corner. Yeah, that one! Now, we need to cut it down to size and smooth it out in the shape of…”
For eight hours you worked under her instruction, filing, sawing, bolting down, and drilling. You paused only for a lunch break, helped out greatly by the portable stove and a cabinet of canned food, then went straight back to work. You saw Alphys in her element, completely focused on the task at hand. She was vibrant, full of life as she flitted about the room, her claws working with impossible speed, a concentrated look on her face as she worked. Her wings rippled every time she finished a section, and she allowed a triumphant look to pass across her face for a moment, before going straight back to work. It was one of the most inspiring things you had ever seen.
Finally, at six o’clock, when her phone rang, the two of you laid down your tools and creations, smiling at each other. She reached over to pick up the phone with one hand, leaning her head against her shoulder to hold it in place as she began to place coverings over your work.
“Hello? Oh hi Undyne! I’m downstairs - no wait! Don’t come down here; I’ll be up in a moment. No, it’s a surprise for someone. Yes, I know you can keep a secret - it’s not like that! No no no, it’s a present. For a friend. Nobody’s allowed to know. Okay, I’ll see you in a minute. Love you.”
She gave you a bit of a weary grin as you finished up the covering for her.
“Same time tomorrow?” she asked.
You nodded. You would do whatever it took to get these wings for him. She seemed to understand that.
“Frisk,” she began, “you’re - you’re really a great friend. You’re one of my best friends and you’re so kind and caring and you’ll...you’ll do great. I know Sans will love this. He’ll really appreciate all the effort you’re putting into this for him too. I know I would.”
She leaned down to hug you quickly, her wings curling around you briefly. You walked hand in hand with her into the elevator, heading up to have dinner with Undyne.