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Frisk took a deep breath as she stepped out of the now broken down elevator. She hoped that she’d be able to find another way back up or a way to restart the power so she could use this elevator again. But that was something she could worry about later, for now she needed to find out what Alphys meant by ‘the truth’.
She started heading down the long hallway pausing to read the log entries on the computer screens lining the wall on one side. She assumed these must have been written by Alphys, apparently she had been trying to harness the power of monster souls to break the barrier. Frisk wondered what could have possibly gone so terribly wrong that Alphys now felt like she needed to hide this. Yeah sure experimenting on souls was a moral grey area but normally something like that wouldn’t need to be hidden so deeply.
Determined to learn more Frisk turned the corner. Another long green tiled corridor, no log entries this time though. As she took her first step down this new hallway she saw what looked like an odd figure way at the end through the doorway. She froze as she noticed it seemed to move a little. There was something about it that didn’t seem quite right, she wasn’t sure what it was though. She couldn’t even really see it all that well, but just looking at it made her feel more than a little uneasy.
Deciding she was just being paranoid she took another step forward. Her footstep echoed quietly down the hallway. The thing at the end of the hall seemed to have heard as it moved suddenly, turning to look at her, maybe. She still couldn’t see anything other than its outline but it looked humanoid… sort of.
Frisk felt her blood run cold as it started moving towards her. She instinctively stepped back around the corner pressing herself up against the wall. But she had nowhere to run or hide, it would find her eventually. What would it do when it found her though?
She forced herself to take long deep breaths, she needed to think about this rationally. It was most likely just another monster, nothing to be scared of. It was probably just the creepy atmosphere getting to her.
So taking a deep breath she stepped around the corner once more determined to face her fears. But there was nothing there. Whatever it was it had disappeared.
She let out a long shaky breath as she ran a hand through her hair. She mentally scolded herself for getting so worked up over nothing. But then it hit her, whatever it was it was still around. Maybe it was lying in wait somewhere up ahead, waiting for her.
But no she couldn’t think like that. She had to move forward, scary thing or no scary thing. So she started forward once more.
As she explored the labs she came across more log entries detailing how Alphys had injected dying monsters with determination. The whole situation made Frisk feel uneasy. Something most definitely was not right down here. And it wasn’t just because whatever she’d seen in the hallway had scared her. But she needed to know the truth so she ignored her misgivings and continued looking.
Eventually she came upon a door that led into a room full of empty beds. After closing the door behind her she surveyed the room. On the far side of the room she saw it. She had no doubt that it was the thing from the hallway, only now she could see it better.
She let out an involuntary gasp as it turned to face her. It looked like two melting… skeletons(?) had somehow fused together, one significantly shorter than the other. Its clothing also looked like it was melting. The smaller one looked like it might have once been wearing a blue jacket of some kind while the taller one wore a dripping red scarf. One of its two heads, the one belonging to what would have once been the smaller skeleton, had a soulless grin seemingly locked permanently onto its face. Both of their pairs of eye sockets looked like bottomless pits of nothing.
It started moving towards her and it soon stood in front of her. She hadn’t even had time to turn and run. Despite looking like it might collapse into a pile of goop at any moment it was fast.
Frisk desperately tried to open the door behind her but her hands were too shaky and couldn’t turn the knob. As she stood there frozen she saw the grinning head’s left eye flicker blue for a few seconds as it stared at her.
“Um… hi,” she said in small voice hoping this was just some really bizarre kind of monster. Even though she didn’t think she’d ever seen any monsters that resembled even a normal skeleton before let alone two melted together.
The smaller one lifted one of its hands in a halfhearted fist as it made a feeble knocking motion in the air. “Knock… knock…” it said in a strange echoey voice sending shivers through Frisk’s body. Only a few seconds passed before it repeated this action.
The taller skeleton’s head seemed agitated by this as it shook its head. “Stop…” it muttered quietly in a similar echoey voice.
Frisk slowly sidled along the wall hoping it wouldn’t follow her. But of course her hopes were in vain as it easily stayed level with her.
“Knock… knock…” the smaller one said again.
“Are you trying to make a knock, knock joke?” Frisk asked confused as to why it didn’t seem to want to hurt her.
It didn’t respond as it just repeated itself again.
“Well uh… who’s there?” Frisk wasn’t sure what else to do, it’s not like she’d ever be able to get away from it.
“Dishes…” it replied.
“Dishes who?”
“Dishes…” a long pause as if it couldn’t remember how to finish its joke. “Dishes…” it sounded flustered and unhappy but its grin stayed frozen in place.
“It’s okay if you don’t remember, I’m sure it was a very funny joke,” Frisk said starting to feel less afraid and more sorry for it.
“Knock… knock…” it repeated again.
“No… stop…” the taller one scolded.
It seemed like her fear was in vain, this thing wasn’t scary it was pitiful. It couldn’t even complete its own joke and its other half didn’t seem happy about its attempts at making one. She wondered how such a thing came to be. Were these two things once separate entities that somehow got fused together and lost their minds in the process? Was this what Alphys wanted her to see? Should she try to put it out of its misery? She couldn’t bare the thought of killing anything but… no she wouldn’t try anything like that yet.
“Hey,” she interrupted their sort of argument, “You guys shouldn’t fight like that, try being friends instead.”
“Friend… friend…” the taller one said seeming to focus its attention on her.
“You want to be friends with me?” Frisk asked thinking that maybe getting their attention wasn’t such a good idea after all.
“Friend… solve… puzzle…?” it asked.
“You want me to solve a puzzle? Yeah sure, I guess I can try,” she said wondering what was going to happen next.
“Friend… solve… puzzle…” it sounded happy as it started to shuffle away looking back to make sure she followed.
As it led her to wherever its puzzle was the head once belonging to the smaller skeleton fell asleep and started quietly snoring.
Frisk wondered what would happen if she poked it, or them. It looked like they were made of goop so would her finger go right through? It probably wasn’t a very good idea to test that.
“Solve… puzzle…” it said as they reached a table with a piece of paper on it.
Frisk assumed the puzzle was probably supposed to be on the piece of paper but it looked like mostly just a bunch of scribbles to her. But the thing seemed excited about her solving its puzzle so she decided she’d humor it. Not to mention if she didn’t it might get angry and try to hurt her. So she nodded determinedly at it as she picked up the pencil on the desk and bent over to study its scribbles. She had no idea what kind of puzzle it was even supposed to be but she’d do her best to make it happy.
After several seconds of thought she decided to just add a few more scribbles to the paper. Whatever this thing was it probably wasn’t smart enough to know the difference.
“Here I uh solved your puzzle,” she said holding out the sheet of paper.
“Good…?” its echoey voice still creeped her out.
“Yeah, it was a good puzzle, very uh challenging,” she said which seemed to make it happy.
She wondered what these poor creatures had been like before this happened to them. The shorter of the two had probably liked jokes and sleeping (since it was still asleep) while the taller seemed to have liked puzzles. She wondered if it remembered either of its former lives and if it thought of itself as one creature now or two.
“You guys have names?” she asked it.
“Names…?” it repeated back at her.
“My name is Frisk. Do you remember what your names were or are?”
It didn’t respond, the one head just kept sleeping while the other stared at her with a confused look on its face.
“It’s okay if you don’t remember,” she assured it. “You want to explore the lab with me and see if we can’t find anything about what happened to you? Even though I guess you probably already know but just can’t tell me.”
“Name… name…?” it mumbled confusedly.
With a sigh she decided she’d just continue exploring. As she started to move away it followed after her.
Eventually she came upon an interesting log entry. It read: “Sans came in today, something happened to Papyrus, he didn’t really tell me what. He wanted me to try to use the determination to save his brother. Papyrus is my friend too but I was still hesitant to try it. But I couldn’t say ‘no’ to Sans. So I injected Papyrus with some determination, he seems to have stabilized just like everyone else. But no one’s actually woken up yet so I still don’t know what’ll happen next.”
Frisk wondered if this log entry was about her new friend(s). “Papyrus?” she asked as she turned to face it.
Both heads perked up at the name but it was the one with the red scarf who spoke, “The… great… Papyrus…” it said.
“And Sans?” Frisk said.
“Ice… to… meet… you…” the head that had previously been sleeping said with a giggle. Frisk wondered why he’d made an ice pun but based off the way he was dressed he probably came from a cold climate, possibly Snowdin.
“It’s very ice to meet you too,” She replied making him laugh harder.
This seemed to annoy the Papyrus half, “No… no… no…” he said shaking his head.
“No need to get all flustered,” Frisk assured them. “At least I know your names now. Now all we have to do is find out what happened to make you like this and maybe we can find a way to undo it.”
Even though if there had been a way to undo it then surely Alphys would have done so by now. She wondered how long they had been stuck like that and if they were in any pain because of it. They didn’t seem to be but there was no way being like that could be pleasant.
As Frisk went back to exploring the labs the Sans/Papyrus thing continued to follow her. The Sans half would occasionally giggle for seemingly no reason or would go back to repeatedly failing to make a knock, knock joke or just say really weird stuff that made no sense. The Papyrus half seemed to hate this and got increasingly agitated with his other half and Frisk would have to soothe him with a few gentle words.
Eventually they ran into more monsters melted together. Frisk managed to calm them all down but none of them wanted to follow her the way the Sans/Papyrus thing did. She was glad for the company, this place was still creepy and unnerving and as they walked along and she would occasionally talk to them about various things. She wasn’t sure how much they understood but they seemed to enjoy listening to her. They must have been lonely being locked up down here with the only company being other barely conscious melting pools of monsters.
As she went she also found more log entries claiming that all the monsters who had fallen down had woken up. Apparently Alphys had been about to send everyone home when something horrible happened. Frisk guessed the horrible thing had to have been everyone melting into each other.
In time she finally found the way to the power generator so she could restart the power. After flipping the switch she heard a sound behind her. Turning around she saw it was Alphys.
As Alphys approached she gave the Sans/Papyrus thing a sad regretful look. “I still can’t believe I did this to them. They were my friends and I… I did this to them,” she said.
“What actually did happen?” Frisk asked.
With a sigh Alphys explained her experiments with determination on dying monsters to try to make their souls last longer after death. But instead of doing that it made them melt into each other instead. “Something happened to Papyrus and Sans couldn’t let him die so he brought him here to me. At his insistence I injected Papyrus with determination too and when he started melting Sans refused to leave him and… and ended up melting with him. And now they’re like this and I can’t do anything to fix it.”
As Alphys talked the Sans head fell asleep again and was soon quietly snoring.
“But it’s time I tell everyone what I’ve done,” Alphys continued. “It’s going to be hard being honest and believing in myself. I’m sure there’ll be times when I struggle and screw up again. But knowing I have friends to fall back on will make it a lot easier to stand on my own. I’m going take everyone home like I promised.”
“What about them?” Frisk asking pointing to the Sans/Papyrus thing. “Do they have a home?”
“No, the only family they’ve ever really had was each other, so I guess they’ll have to stay with me,” Alphys said. “Come on guys, let’s go take everyone home.”
Alphys gestured Sans/Papyrus to follow her but they stayed where they were. “Come on,” she gestured again.
“They can stay with me for a little while longer, I don’t mind,” Frisk said.
“Well okay then,” Alphys said before gathering up all the other fused monsters. “Oh and uh thanks for helping me believe in myself again,” she said before closing the door behind her.
As Frisk made her way back to the palace Sans/Papyrus continued to happily follow her. But when she reached the garden before the area leading to the room where Asgore no doubt waited for her she stopped.
“You guys are going to have to stay here for now,” she told them firmly.
“Stay…?” both heads echoed in unison.
“Yes stay,” Frisk confirmed. “I can’t take you with me when I confront Asgore. I don’t know what’s going to happen and I can’t be worrying about what you’re up to.”
“Stay…” they said again as they sat on ground next to the flower bed.
Feeling relieved that she wouldn’t have to worry about her new friend(s) Frisk determinedly went on the face whatever was going to happen with Asgore.
After saving everyone from Flowey and Asriel and after Asriel brought the barrier down Frisk returned to the garden to find Sans/Papyrus still waiting for her. They rose to meet her.
“Hey guys,” she greeted them. “Want to go meet the rest of my new friends?”
She wasn’t sure if they understood her or not but they happily followed her into the other room where everyone was waiting for her. Everyone except Alphys froze at the sight of them. She had kind of forgotten how scary they looked.
“So it’s true,” Undyne said with a shocked expression on her face. “Alphys you really did… well at least now I know why they disappeared.”
“I’m sorry,” Alphys said. “I didn’t know that would happen otherwise I never would’ve…”
“Maybe there’s a way for you to fix it?” Asgore suggested.
“I don’t think so,” Alphys sighed.
“Undyne…?” the Papyrus head echoed as it stared at her.
“Oh Papyrus, I’m so sorry this happened to you,” Undyne said before angrily turning to Alphys, “Alphys you could’ve at least told me about this. They were my friends and I… I had right to know.”
“I know but…” Alphys said shrinking under the weight of Undyne’s glare.
“Hey Mom,” Frisk said quickly before Undyne could make an angry reply to Alphys.
“Yes, my child?” Toriel asked.
“Well they seem to really like me and Alphys said they don’t really have any other family. Do you think maybe they could come home with us?” Frisk asked staring hopefully up at her new mother.
“Well of course, if that’s what they want,” Toriel said.
“Sans, Papyrus, do you guys want to come home with me?” Frisk asked turning to them.
They perked up at the sound of their names being spoken. “Home…?” they echoed.
“Yeah home, with me and my new Mom, she can be like your mom too. And maybe one day we’ll be able to find a way to fix you and everyone else,” Frisk said.
“Wait before we make any decision about where they might go there’s one option we haven’t consider yet,” Undyne cut in. “They can’t be very happy being stuck like that, maybe it would be best if we… put them and all the others like them out of their misery.”
“What? No,” Despite only having known them for only a short time Frisk already felt rather attached to them. “There has to be a way to fix them right?”
“I… I don’t think there is,” Alphys said. “But maybe we could try anyway.”
“Yeah, and until Alphys can fix them they can stay with me and Mom,” Frisk said.
“Very well then,” Undyne sighed.
“So you guys wanna come home with me?” Frisk asked as she turned back to Sans/Papyrus.
During their conversion Sans had fallen asleep again but Papyrus seemed to understand what was being asked of him as he nodded.
The End