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He entered the True Lab. Something was off. Normally Frisk would have left by now.
Alphys stood there, holding a syringe in her claws, pressed up against the wall. She met his eyes and mouthed something he couldn’t understand. In front of her was what looked like Frisk...but not. It looked like it was melting.
It tore into her, breaking the syringe that she held. The reddish liquid spilled onto the floor.
He left the room quickly, tunneling through the floor until he found the room he was looking for.
Alphys had been doing more Determination experiments. Usually Frisk arrived and met Alphys quickly enough for her to have not finished them, but Frisk had taken longer on this route, stayed as long as they could in each area.
She must have attempted to go through with the experiment.
Behind bars were creatures that looked like monsters, but off. As he approached the cages, one of them, what had once been a Snowdrake, lunged at him. He flinched despite himself.
Flowey turned to the side of the room, where rows of syringes were set up beside tubes of red liquid. Determination?
He lifted himself onto the table using his vines and picked up a report sitting near the edge.
I’ve discovered something.
As everyone knows, monsters’ bodies are less physical matter than humans, and more made of magic. I have found a way to extract the magic from monsters and distill it into a liquid like Determination.
Draining the magic from these monsters, of course, kills them. However, when injected with a mixture of magic and Determination, monsters are transformed into creatures that seek both substances.
I conducted an experiment where I left several of these creatures in a room with monsters that had not yet been injected with the mixture. They instantly murdered the monsters. Strangely, these monsters did not become dust. Instead, they slowly transformed into these creatures.
More research is required.
Huh. That explained why so many monsters had been going missing recently.
That sick freak. She clearly didn’t even ask for volunteers, no sir, she just kidnapped them.
But how had Frisk been turned? Surely Alphys wouldn’t use them in her experiments...right?
Whatever. It didn’t matter. Now that Frisk had been turned, they likely wouldn’t, or couldn’t, RESET. That meant that until Flowey gained back the ability to RESET, the world would stay like this. Permanently.
---
Flowey was as still and quiet as possible.
Whoever had the most Determination would have the ability to RESET...since before Frisk fell, he had had it, it would stand to reason that if they died, he would gain it back if they didn’t respawn due to their...state. Since they hadn’t LOADed when they became like this, they likely forgot how or couldn’t access their SAVE file.
The only trouble would be killing them.
He could try to absorb the human souls, now that Asgore was no longer guarding them, having been turned about half an hour ago.
At this rate, he wouldn’t have been surprised if he was the only one left in the Underground.
Deciding that absorbing the souls would be his best bet, he left the room he had been hiding in and burrowed through New Home, making sure to pay attention to the vibrations in the ground telling him where the creatures were.
Finally, Flowey reached the room where the souls were kept. In one of the corners, the tiles were loose enough for him to enter.
“hey. you’re here for the souls, huh?”
Of course that smiley trashbag wouldn’t have been turned yet.
Flowey turned to the source of the voice to see Sans leaning against one of the coffins.
“Look, I don’t have time to deal with you. I need to get these so I can go murder a child and fix this.”
“murder a child? that’s not a very nice thing to say, don’tcha think?”
Flowey rolled his eyes. He’s having to deal with the world ending in a zombie apocalypse and this stupid skeleton isn’t even going to let him fix it.
He won’t let him fix it...unless he’s helping.
Flowey quickly explained about the RESETs, Determination, the experiments - everything. As he talked about his plan to RESET and restore the Underground, the expression on Sans’s face grew hopeful.
“you’re saying we can reverse this? we can bring papyrus back?”
“Your brother’s out there? I would ask how you’re keeping it together, but I’ve seen the other RESETs where he dies. Also, I don’t really care.”
Sans narrowed his eye sockets, tapping his fingers on the coffin.
“i don’t see any reason why i should trust you.”
Flowey smiled. “I can’t give you one. But I’m your only option. Besides, I have just as much a reason to want this all back to normal as you. It’s no fun playing games with the human when they’re like this.” he chirped.
Sans didn’t say anything for several minutes.
“fine.”
He stepped away from the coffin, which Flowey took to mean that he could go ahead and absorb them.
It was a weird feeling, having other souls inside you. They weren’t speaking to him exactly, but he felt their emotions and opinions on the matter. They weren’t happy about it, either, but they would help.
Flowey felt their Determination course through him, knowing that if he wanted to, he could murder Sans right here and now. But the souls felt a rush of anger at that idea, and he knew that it would be easier to kill Frisk with his assistance.
Sans watched him, distrust clearly visible in his eye lights.
“Right. Let’s go, then.”
---
The creatures were everywhere, running through New Home as though they were going insane without more monsters to kill. Flowey could identify what most of them had been before the transformation, but some just looked like melting blobs.
Flowey might not have felt any compassion for any of these monsters, but he still knew them, and it was...well, horrifying. They’re like you...products of one of Alphys’s experiments. He pushed the thought away, making a mental note to ponder it later. It sounded too empathetic for him, and he needed to make sure that he wouldn’t become weakened by emotions.
It was nearly impossible to search for Frisk, as the creatures kept moving around. Once Flowey thought that they might have been spotted, but as they ran away, it didn’t give chase.
Sans’s flinches every time they saw one didn’t go unnoticed.
“We should try somewhere else. I don’t think they’re here.”
Sans nodded, tearing his gaze away from the apocalyptic scene before them.
“alright. any idea where they are?”
“They might still be near the True Lab, in Hotland.”
“i’ll ‘port us over there.”
Flowey climbed onto Sans’s shoulder, clinging to him with his roots. He closed his eyes. In none of his RESETs had he ever teleported with Sans before, and he was glad. It was terrible, like he was falling into a pit while being suffocated. It only lasted for a second, but that second felt like an eternity.
They arrived in Alphys’s house, on the second floor. Sans, having never been to the True Lab in this timeline, couldn’t teleport them directly there, much to Flowey’s annoyance.
There weren’t any creatures in her house, which was strange. In New Home they had been crawling in every nook and cranny of every room.
There was something odd about the air, something wrong that Flowey couldn’t place a petal on.
He shivered.
The air was thick with tension as they took the elevator down. When it stopped, the lights cut out for a second. Flowey glanced at the ceiling anxiously. The thought dawned on him that the likelihood of him dying, permanently , was very high.
Sans looked at him, sensing that he was more afraid than he let on. He didn’t mention it, however, instead summoning a blaster and a dozen or so bones.
Flowey prepared friendliness pellets, not wanting to use any of his more powerful attacks until he knew what they were dealing with.
He pressed the button to open the elevator doors with a vine, frowning when they didn’t open. He pried them open, using some of the strength provided by the souls to do so.
Behind the door, there was nothing to suggest anything was off beyond the presence of a sticky goo on the floor, likely from the creatures.
“This is too quiet,” Flowey muttered as they explored the lab.