Chapter Text
As soon as you and Frisk entered the white lab building, you were met by an excited squeak. A yellow…lizard?...dinosaur?? in a lab coat and huge round glasses timidly peered out from the stacks of papers on a nearby table. It was a messy table – much like your own on the surface, you noted. It was crammed with papers, coffee mugs, uncleared cup noodles and the like, save for a small rectangular space in front of which a chair was placed.
“Oh my god!!!” the yellow dinosaur squeaked in excitement, “I-I’ve been expecting you two!!! I-I- My name is Alphys, I’m the Royal Scientist! N-Nice to meet you!!”
Alphys was so excited, she continued without pause, “I-I’ve been monitoring- um- watching your journey through the- uhhhh- s-security cameras in the Underground and I-I just want to say that I’m such a huge fan of what you’ve done!!”
She stepped towards Frisk, “I saw how you made friends and got along with everyone! And for saving Undyne- thank you so much! Your determination is just so inspirational!!”
Then she rushed forward to you, her eyes sparkling with admiration. “And you, your fighting is amazing! I’ve seen your fight with Undyne, you’re so cool like her!!” She does a small excited dance on the spot. “And oh my god- you and Sans are so cute togetherrrrrr!!! I, like, ship you two so much!!!”
Frisk burst out in laughter on hearing that, to which Alphys responded by hastily wiping the excitement from her face and apologising, “oh, I’m sorry! W-Was that weird? I shouldn’t have said-”
“Oh, no,” Frisk said before you could do anything, “you’re totally right! I keep telling Sissy but she keeps denying it!” Oh god no.
Alphys’ face lit up again with excitement. “You think so too? Oh my god Frisk you need to tell me all about them!”
“Sure I will!” Frisk laughed. Great. They’re ganging up on you now. You can’t wait to tell Sans about this. Then maybe you’ll have someone on your side too. You cross your arms and pretend to sulk while Frisk and Alphys continue their conversation enthusiastically. You hear squeals from Alphys now and then, accompanied by Frisk’s uncontrollable giggles. Well. At least she was having fun, albeit at your expense.
You figure Frisk would be fine with Alphys, so you opt to take a look around the lab while they were occupied. There were escalators at each end of the lab – one going up, and the other down. You took the one going up, and found yourself in a narrow space with a travelator that stretched from where you stood, to where the other escalator was. Against the wall on the right were tables and various workstations. They weren’t as messy as the one downstairs, but they were not spared from being smothered by Alphys’ many papers.
You take a look at a few of those papers. There were a few things you didn’t understand – for example, a file with a research report that Alphys apparently wrote all about souls and determination. It was very technical, with sections detailing the parts of the brain (your intelligent guess of whatever an amygdala was), extraction process for some weird hormones, and many other things foreign to you.
Some of the other papers however, you could decipher. Among them was a blueprint for a robot, and a book documenting a programming language Alphys created especially for coding features for the Underground’s mobile phones. You were impressed by her extensive mastery of the sciences – you could clearly see why she was the Royal Scientist.
“Um, don’t mind the m-mess up here! I didn’t really have the time to clean it up…” You turn your head to see Alphys standing beside you nervously with Frisk behind her.
“It’s okay,” you say, “I, uh, looked at some of your papers and I’m really impressed with your work.”
“H-huh?” a deep blush appeared on Alphys’ face. “That- I-It’s not really that good…”
“I think it’s excellent! I don’t think many people are able to do all this – that bio stuff, engineering a robot…hell, you even wrote a new programming language? This is crazy fucking good!”
“T-thank you! Y-you really think so…?” Alphys looks at you, then to Frisk for confirmation. Frisk nods vigorously, “if Sissy thinks you’re good, then you are! Sissy is good at science-y stuff too!”
“Y-you guys are too nice to me!” Alphys’ eyes water, and she almost looks like she’s going to cry of happiness. But suddenly-
CRASH.
What the fuck? It sounded like someone had broken through a wall downstairs, and the shaking of the floors sure felt like it too.
“Darlings? Am I late to the party?” a robotic, yet strangely melodic voice came from downstairs.
“Met-Mettaton? No-not ye-” Alphys looked terrified and panicked. She scurried downstairs, while you and Frisk followed.
“Oh, there you are!” The voice was from a boxy robot – the one you saw from the blueprints upstairs. “WELCOME, BEAUTIES…… TO TODAY’S QUIZ SHOW!!!” It was practically screaming at everyone now. You momentarily block out his words, as his loud voice was…annoyingly loud and distracting. You could feel the onset of a headache. Suddenly, you were thrown into the darkness of a battle. Except…it wasn’t a battle? Confused, you look up to see a screen with four options displayed on them, each labelled ‘A’ to ‘D’.
“WELL, DARLING? WHAT WOULD YOUR ANSWER BE? TIME IS TICKING!” What? You weren’t paying attention. You didn’t even hear the question.
“I think it’s D!” Frisk yelled.
“RIGHT! SOUNDS LIKE YOU GET IT!” Wait, get what?? “HERE’S YOUR TERRIFIC PRIZE! WHAT IS THE KING’S FULL NAME?” Oh. You know that. Thank god you read Toriel’s books before leaving the ruins.
“C, Asgore Dreemurr,” you answer.
“CORRECT! WHAT A TERRIFIC ANSWER!” You feel oddly accomplished, and Frisk claps for you. A game show huh? You could do this.
The questions were somewhat hilarious, and also easy to answer. Except the one math question about the two trains. You were so shocked by the drastic change that it took you an embarrassing twenty seconds to do the calculations in your head. But then it got worse.
“HOW MANY FLIES ARE IN THIS JAR?” What? How were you supposed to know? You looked at Frisk. She was staring at the jar and rubbing her imaginary beard as if in thought. Was she really counting the flies??
“54!” Frisk yelled her answer.
“CORRECT! YOU’RE SO LUCKY TODAY!” Mettaton waved his hands in fake celebration and turned a circle on his wheel. You turned to Frisk for an explanation. She was looking at you too, with a silly grin on her face. She winks and whispers to you, “I got this, Sissy!”
She wasn’t lying. You don’t know how she did it, but she was getting the correct answer for even the most absurd trick questions. Then there was the last one, asking about who Alphys’ crush was.
“Hey Sissy,” Frisk nudged you, “I think it’s Undyne. What do you think?” You remember that when you both entered the lab, Alphys did talk about Undyne. In fact it was the only person besides you both she mentioned. If you remembered correctly, she had also said Undyne was cool. Yup, probably Undyne. You nod at Frisk in agreement.
“Okies, Undyne it is then!” Frisk yelled gleefully.
“SEE, ALPHYS? I TOLD YOU IT WAS OBVIOUS.” Alphys was covering her face with her hands in embarrassment now. You couldn’t help but double up in laughter. You were SO gonna tell her how much you shipped her and Undyne later. Oooh that payback.
“UNTIL NEXT TIME, DARLINGS!!!!” Oh, it’s over? You look up just in time to see Mettaton wheel away back through the hole he made in the wall.
“I-I’m so sorry about that!” Alphys frantically apologised, “well I guess it can’t be helped!”
“It’s okay! Sissy and I enjoyed it!”
“Yup, I have a new ship now,” you smirk.
“Anyway!” Alphys said unnaturally louder than usual, “let’s exchange numbers! Then you can call me if Mettaton gets a bit troublesome, or if you need any help.”
“Okay, sure!” Frisk fished out the phone Toriel gave her from her pocket and handed it to Alphys.
“Oh my god! This phone is ancient!” Alphys exclaimed. “Here, I’ll upgrade it for you.” She took out a screwdriver from her lab coat, and began to unscrew the cover of Frisk’s phone. Frisk watches in awe as Alphys removes a few chips from the old phone and transfers it into a new case she pulled out of her pocket. She also pulls out a portable solder and a few other spare parts (how big is her lab coat pocket?!), and begins to piece the new phone together on the spot.
It didn’t take long for her to be done. Alphys hands the phone back to Frisk, “I upgraded quite a few functions, added my number and added you on social media. You can access boxes from your phone now too.”
“Woah, super cool! Thanks, Alphys!” Frisk powers her phone on, and starts to explore its new functions. She looked really amazed with it.
“Um, can I have a word with you?” Alphys had gotten really close to you and was trying to speak as softly as she could. It took you by surprise.
“Uh, okay…?”
“This way,” she leads you to the corner beside the lab exit.
“So, what is it you wanna say?”
“Um, about Undyne…” Alphys shifted awkwardly and looked down at her feet, “I saw what happened. I’m sorry for what she did…”
“That’s it?” you raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t as big of a deal as you’d expected.
“Undyne is just…really passionate about her job! Please don’t hate her for it…” Alphys’ voice trailed away. “And, um…I hope your leg is feeling better. I know Sans fixed you up but you should have this.” She holds out a small canned drink to you. You take it.
“Is this…coffee?”
“Not just any coffee. It’s Alphys’ Mew Mew Coffee!” Alphys rubs her hands together eagerly as she explained, “I formulated this, and it’s what I always drink. It’s like a really powerful energy drink that’ll restore you to full health and perfect condition! It works for wounds too, just give it, um…an hour maybe?”
“That’s…cool.” You wish you had gotten this earlier instead. “Thanks, Alphys.”
“N-no problem!” she beams at you, “well, you, uh, better get going. I-I have to go to the bathroom!”
“Ok…bye.”
“See you around…heh.”